Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall Read Online Free

their mouths should not have been. They are so busy trying to keep their lips down over their teeth and, at the same time, they are wanting to go ahead and smile. It makes you think there is something in there, in their mouth, that they do not want you to see.
    What she did was, she sucked on each one, one at a time. She got one of them in her mouth, and she pulled it into her mouth, and then she ran her tongue over it and sucked on it and pushed it back out, and then she got the other one in there. It was like she was trying to tell me something.
    Clearinghouse is what she was saying, but it was her teeth I was looking at. Clearinghouse was in there in her mouth, but it was something else I was trying to see.
    She gets me in her mouth and she starts going up and down and up and down, and I keep thinking I should stop her before something goes in her mouth she might not want to have in her mouth. I keep thinking I should tap her on the shoulder. I should tell her something might be getting in her mouth that maybe she thinks is something that should not be a thing that gets into a person’s mouth.
    ~
     
    One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,” I always say.
    Or, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.”
    Or just, “One, two, three, four.”
    Or, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”
    One time I said, “Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?”
    ~
     
    There were stretches of several days at a time when I never saw Tutti. I would call her from a donut shop when I was ahead on my run. She would ask me to pick something up. Butter or eggs or milk, and I would put these things in the fridge when I got home.
    Sometimes a train would stop directly behind our building. This might happen at four o’clock in the morning. If it was summer, and the windows were open, I would wake up in a fright. No matter how many times this happened, it always felt as though the world was ending.
    I understood what Roy meant when he claimed there was some advantage to be had in selling a house that was right next to the railroad tracks.
    For seven years I drove a transit bus. Most mornings I had coffee with Roy. Every morning he talked about his house. For seven years he was working on the finishing touches – putting in baseboards, or painting the ceilings. He would do a job and then realize he had done it wrong. Then he would do it over again. He had never built a house before, he told me. He had no idea what he was doing. He was learning from his mistakes.
    His intention was to finish the house to a certain point. He would not decorate. He would leave that for the people who bought the house. That would be a point in his favor. That and the railroad tracks. He would find a young couple, newly married, who wanted to decorate their own home, and who wanted to have railroad tracks nearby.
    I think there are reasons for wanting to be near the railroad tracks. I think there are places a person can go just sitting by the window, watching the trains. And I think a newly married person might find a need to go to these places.
    It has been years now since I drove a bus. I have a job in a library now. Every morning I come in and sit down at my computer terminal. I tap away at the keys. Sometimes I go to meetings. At five o’clock I go home. The other day Roy came to see me. He said he had heard I was working in a library and wanted to come and see how I was doing. I told him I was doing fine. Things were fine, I said. Tutti was fine. Sammy was fine. What else could I tell him?
    Roy’s intention, at one time, had been to move up north. He said he wanted to buy a piece of property on a lake and retire up there. Maybe drive a local bus part-time. Maybe cut other people’s grass. Start a landscaping company. He was going to do this as soon as he sold his house.
    ~
     
    The only time I looked back was one time last summer, just after baseball season. I have felt this sorry