Half the Day Is Night Read Online Free Page A

coffee maker in the loft. He didn’t really need to use the kitchen but most mornings he did. Mostly to bitch about her coffee. He said he didn’t like Caribbean coffee, that it was bitter and weak. She didn’t like surface coffee, it tasted wrong, bland. And on the surface coffee stayed too hot, too long.
    He rummaged around the cupboards while she read about Mandatory Sterilization for Incorrigibles, particularly women who were addicted to neuro-stimulation. He was looking for the jar he used every morning. “Why don’t you use that vacuum thing in the loft?” she asked.
    He found the jar. She kept pushing it to the back of the cupboard but he kept finding it. He poured coffee in and tightened the lid.
    â€œOne of these mornings it’s going to explode,” she said.
    â€œNah,” he said. The coffee boiled almost instantly, frothing until it filled the jar. He left it, letting it build up pressure, a tiny little storm of coffee.
    Mayla could sympathize with the jar. Don’t, she thought. Just relax, don’t let him get to you. If it breaks, then it breaks. The worst that would happen was that it ruined the flash. She could buy a new flash.
    The jar didn’t break, it never had yet. Jars didn’t break for the Tims of the world, she reflected. If she stuck a jar in the flash there would be coffee everywhere. It would look like the scene of a murder. The flash binged and he pulled it out, opened the lid and the room smelled of coffee. He had to hold the jar with a dish towel to pour. “Ah,” he said. “That’s what coffee should be. You know, cold coffee is what destroyed the Roman Empire.”
    She nodded, pretending to look at the paper. Mandatory Sterilization, the headline she had already read. Too late, she thought, he’s already born.
    â€œOh,” he said, eyebrows quirked. “Cranky this morning.”
    â€œI’ve run out of things to say about coffee,” she said. Her voice was flatter than she intended.
    Tim just turned from her and sipped his coffee. The only way he knew how to talk to people was to joke.
    She waited for him to say something. If Tim wasn’t talking he was mad. “Want the sports?” she asked.
    He shrugged.
    Another long pause. He wasn’t going to be here much longer. She could be polite. “How are the driving lessons going?” she offered.
    â€œOkay,” he said, his back to her while he fiddled with his coffee. Now he wouldn’t talk in the car, either. She should just enjoy it when he didn’t talk but she never could. He had all this energy in the morning—he had all this energy, period—but mornings she was murky and he was ready to fight, to be angry.
    â€œMaybe David could drive this morning?” she said.
    He shook his head. “I dunno,” he said. “He really isn’t ready, yet.”
    â€œReady for what?” she said. “He gets on the belt and puts it on automatic, and when he comes off the belt he’s at the bank.” She certainly sounded cranky. She wanted to sound reasonable.
    â€œHe can’t drive very well yet,” Tim said.
    â€œThis way he could get some practice.”
    â€œGive him a break, Mayla,” Tim said, sounding aggravated.
    â€œGive me a break,” she said.
    â€œWhat is your problem this morning?” he said, turning around.
    â€œI want David to drive the car,” she said. Take your place, she was saying, and he knew it.
    â€œAnd you don’t give a damn whether he’s ready or not,” Tim said. “Fine.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t say he was ready if he could—” she couldn’t think of an example of expert driving, her mind didn’t work in the morning, “—if he could, I don’t know, drive like a race car driver.”
    â€œFine,” he said again. “And what am I supposed to do?”
    â€œGo back to bed,” she said, “enjoy the time