Child of My Right Hand Read Online Free Page A

year.”
    â€œOh yes.” Something passed across Marla’s face, as if she weren’t telling everything she knew. “What a sweet kid. Well, goodnight, Jack Barish.”
    With a flash of slender calves, she climbed in her Beetle and sped off.
    ***
    When Jack arrived home, the kids were downstairs watching Charmed . Genna was in her study, where she spent most evenings. She had also volunteered to address students, but Jack had attended orientation for both of them. He knocked and waited. After last spring, which they’d barely survived, they were still tiptoeing, not just around each other, but around the potholes and roadblocks of family life.
    â€œHey,” Genna said, setting down her paperback. “How was the meeting?”
    â€œSlow. They’ll set up our talks in a week or two.”
    â€œWhat were the people like?”
    â€œEarnest.” He thought of Marla, and since their new policy was to avoid potholes with honesty, he added, “This one woman was kind of interesting.”
    â€œOh?” Genna’s face got a wary look.
    â€œMarla Lindstrom, a guidance counselor at the high school. Said she knew Simon.”
    A worry line appeared between Genna’s eyebrows. “I wonder why.”
    Not, I wonder why, Jack thought, but I wonder what’s wrong this time. Simon’s official guidance counselor was Tom O’Neill, whom they’d met when they enrolled Simon last spring and again the first week of class.
    â€œHas he mentioned her?” Jack asked.
    â€œI don’t think so.” The wary look appeared again—a narrowing of her eyes, a slight hunching of her shoulders—and Jack felt annoyed and guilty, because he’d helped put it there.
    â€œDid she seem nice?”
    â€œI guess.” He turned to go, guilty again. He hadn’t said Marla was pretty. “She’s an old friend of the Murrays.”
    ***
    Saturday night, Lizzie was out with new friends from her soccer team. Simon, Genna, and Jack stayed home watching the original Father of the Bride , starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor. They sat in the family room on the semicircular couch purchased from the previous owners, Simon wedged between them, his dyed hair running into the naturally blond permed curls that fell past Genna’s shoulders. Mother and son looked a lot alike, Jack thought, they always had, Genna’s oval face grafted onto his big frame. Although Simon weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, when he nestled his cheek on Genna’s shoulder and tucked his legs up on Jack’s lap, it was as if he were four years old again, just down from riding Jack’s shoulders, and they were a young family watching Winnie the Pooh, with baby Lizzie tucked into her crib in the back bedroom of their California house. It felt safe and sweet as it hadn’t since Jack couldn’t remember when, although earlier in the evening Simon had picked a fight about some damn thing, then groused about what a drag it was to stay home with them.
    On the twenty-five-inch screen, all obstacles to wedded bliss had been overcome. Spencer was giving Liz away. It was oh so sweet and schmaltzy. The wedding march played. Jack could feel a lump blocking the back of his throat, for there she was on her screen father’s arm, Liz Taylor in a perfect white dress with eyelet lace. Simon said, and though he spoke softly, Jack could hear the grief in his voice, “There’s only going to be one real wedding in our family.”
    Genna and Jack eyed each other. “What do you mean?” she asked.
    â€œLizzie will get married someday.” Simon hesitated, while on the screen Spencer passed his daughter to the man who loved her. “But I can’t.”
    In his wife’s eyes Jack read fear and sadness, and he hoped, as he knew Genna was hoping, that Simon would find the courage to go on.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I’m gay.”
    He’d