Frannie in Pieces Read Online Free Page B

to talk about your dad?”
    What does one have to do with the other? “No.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
    She’s not sorry, not deep down. I pull the covers up so only my eyes are showing.
    Whenever my parents came face-to-face, I watched them carefully. Like when Mom and I bumped into Dad on Warren Street. “Hello, Sean,” she said.
    I looked to see if she was smiling, but she wasn’t.She was opaque, which, if you look it up in the dictionary, means “impenetrable by light.” You wouldn’t have a clue from looking at her what she was feeling.
    â€œWhere are you guys headed?” asked my dad. He never said her name, Laura.
    â€œLiberty Diner,” I said. “Want to come?”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œHe’s on his way to the hardware store,” said my mom.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, I am.”
    â€œHow’d you know Dad was going to the hardware store?” I asked her while I ate my favorite sandwich, BLT, minus the T, on white toast with mayo.
    She said, “Some things never change.” That was a negative remark. Here’s the deal. They were frenemies. Public friends, private enemies. Now that he’s gone, how miserable could she be?
    The night after Mom’s attempt at sympathy, both she and Mel show up. He sits in my deskchair and polishes his glasses. She perches on the bed again.
    â€œDon’t think you’re going to be my father,” I tell Mel.
    â€œGood grief.” He gets up and leaves the room. One down. Maybe they’ll have a fight about me later.
    â€œYour dad left you everything, Frannie.”
    I’m watching This Old House on my own personal TV. This Old House was my dad’s favorite show. They’re framing a porch. My mom picks up the remote and hits the mute button.
    â€œWe should go over there. When is school out for the summer?”
    â€œNext Wednesday.”
    â€œSaturday then. I’ll take off work. You should take what you want to keep, and we’ll pack up the rest for Goodwill, okay, sweetheart?”

6
    On Saturday I wake up with my head throbbing and have to keep a pillow over it. “I have a migraine,” I tell Mom.
    â€œThat’s something new. How do you know about migraines?”
    Who doesn’t know about migraines? When Jenna’s mom (aka BlueBerry) gets them, she lies on the couch, closes the blinds, and puts an icepack on her forehead, and everyone tiptoes. The slightest noise sends stabs of pain down her neck.
    â€œI have pain shooting down my neck.”
    Mom gently removes the pillow, tilts my head forward, and presses her fingers into the back of my neck. She rubs around and around. It feels fabulous. “That hurts and it’s not helping.”
    She leaves and returns with two Advils and a bowl of yogurt with honey.
    â€œI can’t swallow pills.”
    â€œI know. That’s why I’m putting them in yogurt.”
    â€œDon’t mash them.”
    â€œI won’t mash them.” She taps the pills into a spoonful of yogurt. “Come on, I swear this will work. Let the yogurt slide down your throat. I heard about this on talk radio.”
    I am forced to follow her instructions, and the technique works. Thus ends a lifetime of near choking.
    An hour later Mom and I are pulling up to Dad’s.
    The house looks the same, as sturdy as ever. I can’t tell you how strange that is. I expect it to be crying. A crying house. Not really, or maybe really.What I mean is I expected evidence. Not crying, but drooping.
    The small one-story house was built two hundred years ago. It has wide weathered shingles and a narrow front porch supported by plain posts. There used to be two small windows, one on either side of the door, but my dad removed them and cut bigger ones. He framed them in wood he’d scavenged from an old barn. The window wood, gray-ish, did not match the house wood, more brownish.