Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events Read Online Free Page B

We’ve wrapped it in a small box and then wrapped that box inside a much larger one.
    I set it in front of him. He looks at me, then her. He lifts the box. “Awfully light.” He shakes it, knocks on each of the box’s six sides. “Things are not what they seem.”
    My mother begins coughing, softly at first—my father pauses, sets his hands flat atop the box—then uncontrollably, in big hacking gusts. I bring her water, which she drinks, still coughing. My father helps her to the bathroom and I can hear her in there, gagging and hacking. For some reason, I’m holding the remote control to the television.
    The box sits unopened in the living room for the rest of the day. At night, with Mom in bed and me brushing my teeth, he picks it up, says, “Diver’s watch, waterproof up to a hundred meters,” then opens it.
    C arrie and I drove to Vero Beach the day before Christmas Eve. There seemed to be a surplus of abandoned cars and dead animals on the side of the road and, between this and the gray sky and the homemade signs marking off the fallow farms— PREPARE FOR THE RAPTURE, PRAISE HIM— I began to daydream about the apocalypse. I was hoping it would arrive just like this, quietly, without much warning or fanfare.
    â€œI know it’s fiction,” Carrie was saying, referring to my father’s most recent story, “but it’s hard not to read it as fact. Did you actually tape pictures of your mom to the front door when Lara came over the first time?”
    â€œMaybe,” I said. “Probably. I don’t really remember.”
    I taped the pictures in a circle, like the face of a clock. I waited at the top of the stairs for the doorbell to ring.
    Carrie pointed to a billboard featuring the likeness of a recently killed NASCAR driver’s car, flanked by white angel wings. “I hope they haven’t started letting race cars into heaven,” she said.
    I finally talked to my father about his writing while we were in the garage looking for the Styrofoam-ball snowman. We were searching through boxes, coming across yearbooks, macramé owls, clothes, and my oboe, snug in purple velvet. I always forgot how fit and reasonable-looking my father was until I saw him in person. His hair was now fully gray and his silver-rimmed reading glasses sat low on his nose.
    â€œI didn’t know we went to the dump to hunt for those dolls,” I said. It sounded more reproachful than I meant it to.
    He looked up from the box, still squinting, as if he’d been searching dark, cramped quarters. “You mean the story?”
    â€œ ‘Blue Angels,’ ” I said. “I read it. I read all of them, actually.”
    â€œThat’s surprising,” he said, folding the flaps of the box in front of him. “Best not to make too much out of what happens in stories, right?”
    â€œBut you were looking for those dolls.”
    â€œI didn’t expect to find them. I wanted to see where they ended up.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to explain. After your mom died—I’d be making breakfast and my mind would wander to Annie and I’d start to lose it. The only time I relaxed was when I slept. That’s why I started studying dreams. I found that if I did a few exercises before falling asleep, I could dictate what I dreamed about. I could remember. I could pause and fast-forward and rewind. You’re giving me a ‘how pitiful’ look.”
    â€œIt’s just strange,” I said. “The dreams, the stories, it feels like I haven’t been paying attention. I had no idea you were being all quietly desperate while I was waiting for my toast.”
    â€œIt wasn’t all the time.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at me. “You should try writing about her, if you haven’t already. You find yourself unearthing all sorts of things. Stories are just like