Gingersnap Read Online Free Page A

do?
    How long would it take Celine to realize that she might have me there forever?
    I’d have to live with her.
    It was unthinkable.
    Theresa lumbered up on the other side of the pond, a smear of mud across her beautiful golden brown shell.
    I could picture what might have happened: A small, dark speck in the sky, a plane coming closer. I couldalmost hear it diving, the noise of it high, whining, sailors looking up, firing. The plane hits the deck with a tremendous explosion. A ball of fire rises, spreads, sparks.…
    “Stop,” the voice said from behind the willow tree. “That doesn’t do any good.”
    “Do you think he’s alive?”
    She sighed. “I don’t know.”
    Did I see her shake her head?
    I stood up and brushed dirt off my socks. Then I went up to the house. I wandered around downstairs: the kitchen where we’d had dinner, the living room with the big radio.
    I started up the stairs.
    “Yes,” said the voice. “You know where you’re going.”
    I didn’t pay attention to her. I wandered in and out of my bedroom, stepping over a slipper, then headed down the hall to Rob’s room.
    “The closet,” she said.
    I closed my eyes. “There’s a box,” he’d said. “My baseball glove.”
    I opened the closet door. Sneakers and a coat. A jacket.
    “On the shelf,” she said.
    I dragged a chair over and stood up, pushing aside his hats. A couple of books clunked down to the floor, just missing my foot.
    I reached for the box, able to touch it with one finger, and edged it toward me, steadying it with my other hand. It came slowly and then teetered on the edge of the shelf. I grabbed it and slid off the chair.
    “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said the voice.
    I slid it open. A peacock feather lay across the top. Just under it was a picture of a man and a woman who had to be my father and mother. My mother wore a hat with a feather—the peacock feather, of course—and my father looked down at her, smiling with even white teeth under his mustache.
    Rob stood next to them, a little boy. He looked so much the way he did now, except that his hair was longer then.
    I held the picture to my face and cried for my parents, who were really strangers, and for Rob, who was so far away, who might not even be alive.
    “Ah, no,” the voice said. “Don’t do that.”
    I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and went through the rest of the box. I patted the baseball glove, tried on a pair of woolen mittens that must have been Rob’s, and looked at the picture of a baby in lace. The baby was probably me, certainly not very pretty.
    “She has a lot of curls,” the voice said, and I almost smiled. That was about the best you could say about that baby.
    At the bottom of the box was a book. I pulled it out,running my hands over the faded blue cover; it was soft under my fingers. I opened it, looking down at the handwritten recipes.
    At first the words were large and loopy, but by the middle of the book the letters were smaller, firmer. I could picture the writer growing older. I couldn’t read a word. It was all in French.
    Sometimes she sang French songs
.
    My mother’s recipe book?
    What had Rob said? A bakery? A grandmother?
    So long ago, did it even matter?
    But there was an address inside the cover—Carey Street, Brooklyn, New York—and a name—Elise Martin. I went through the pages. Somewhere in the middle was an old black-and-white photo. It showed a girl with braids wrapped around her head, not smiling, but squinting into the camera. I didn’t think it was my mother, but who was it?
    I liked her face, her serious eyes staring out at me.
    I held the photo to the light. She was standing in front of a bakery. I held the photo one way and then another. A striped awning shaded the shop window. A name was written above the scallops. I could only just make it out, but I couldn’t believe what I saw.
    I went down to the kitchen, opening one drawer after another, searching for the magnifying glass. I finally put my