Balance of Fragile Things Read Online Free Page B

Yes, Paul, my dear, what did you say?” Her heart pounded in her chest. “No, I’ve never played the lottery. Well—” Maija squinted, hoping the adjustment would increase the acuteness of her large ears, which hid beneath piles of thick brown curls.
    â€œYou want me to look at some lottery tickets? Why, darling? You know it doesn’t work that way.” She scrunched her nose into a button-sized embellishment between her two high cheekbones. Maija’s blue eyes were murky like the sea, and her hair, particularly on humid fall days like this one, would mat together like seaweed tossed in a ruthless current. But an ocean goddess she was not. She was no mermaid or undine. She was stout, like her favorite beer, which she drank warm.
    â€œFine, yes, sweetie, I will look at them. Oh, bring home a gallon of milk, will you, dear?”
    She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she stacked the mail in a neat pile next to the computer in the kitchen nook. There was a notice from Cobalt High inviting parents to join the PTA, a few coupons from Dante’s Hops and Pies, and another letter from India. “What? My putns! Poor Vicki. Okay, I will wait for him.” News that her son was coming home with an injury was upsetting. At that moment her heart raced, and the letter from India began emanating light. It flickered opal like a small galaxy. It was irresistible to Maija.
    â€œ Uz redzēšanos ,” she said, then hung up.
    This letter was different than the others from Paul’s father. She lifted it to the fluorescent light and looked at the thin piece of parchment folded into a square inside. Maija had never met Paul’s family because, he’d told her, they were poor and couldn’t afford the plane tickets from India. Paul and Maija had met in a pharmacy in Cobalt years and years ago. He’d crushed his hand while fixing his car, and he’d been getting antibiotics to ward off infection. She’d fallen in love with him after their first picnic date in the park, when he told her she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen and then kissed her. He told her she tasted like strawberries. They were married in the Cobalt courthouse by a justice, and only a couple friends were in attendance along with Oma. Her day was far from the wedding she’d imagined, but they were in love. Yet every time Maija asked him about his family, Paul turned to ice. Once, he’d mentioned something vague about his father’s anger, and she took it to mean that his abusive nature had caused Paul to immigrate to America. Not knowing the details allowed Maija’s imagination to run without reins.
    Don’t you think it would be good to make amends now? she’d asked years earlier. Whatever happened, happened so long ago.
    Piyar , you should be thankful I am not speaking to them, he replied. Otherwise they might decide to move in with us like other Indian in-laws.
    She’d kept her mouth shut after that.
    The letters had begun to arrive a couple months ago, and their frequency was increasing. Why didn’t Paul’s father just call like a normal person? Maija shrugged and took a deep sniff from the letter’s edge. The glue on the envelope’s lip smelled like a journey across a sea by steamship.
    At that moment, everything within Maija’s vision froze, and her lips became icy, as though a cool breeze had blown across her face. The saliva in her mouth vanished. Her perspective was slipping, and she was being pulled gently backward into herself. It was an uncanny feeling. She thought it must be similar to the sensation Alice felt as she grew taller in the bottom of the rabbit hole.
    Inside her mind, Maija came upon a scene. She felt rain pelt her face as she approached a dense forest. The trees bent and swayed under the wind, then parted to expose a dirt path. Maija moved forward, frightened. Her feet were bare. It felt as if the trees were watching