Last Things Read Online Free Page B

back porch with Alec. Alec had a deck of cards and was showing him a trick. “Pick a card, any card,” he said.
    Edgar picked a card.
    “Now put it back in the deck without showing me.”
    Edgar did this as well.
    With a flourish, Alec shuffled the deck, then turned over the top card. “Is this your card, sir?” he asked.
    Edgar shook his head.
    Alec frowned and turned over the next one. “Perhaps this is the card you have chosen?” he asked.
    “No, it is not,” Edgar said.
    Alec began flipping over cards faster and faster. Jack of hearts, queen of spades, seven of diamonds, five of clubs.
    “No, no, a thousand times no,” Edgar said. He picked up his book and went inside. Alec followed him, but Edgar closed the screen door between them. “Before you ply your trade again, I suggest you master the sleight of hand required,” he told him.
    After Edgar left, Alec threw the pack of cards into the driveway. “What are you looking at?” he asked me. Then he went back inside too.
    I gathered up the cards and examined them. Some had small folds on the corners, and one was marked on the back with an X. After a while, Mary came out and sat beside me. It was time for dinner, she said. She tilted her head and looked at me critically. “You should brush your hair better,” she told me. “The part is crooked and it sticks out on the sides.”
    Grooming was important to Mary because she believed her portrait would one day appear on a dollar bill. The summer before, she had sent away in the mail for a kit to start her own country. Marydom, it was going to be called. It wasn’t ready yet because there was a lot of paperwork to do, she said.
    She took out a brush and ran it over my hair roughly. She brushed my ears and forehead too. Finally, she put it down. “I give up. You’re hopeless,” she told me. She went inside and I followed her. “There you are, silly girls,” my mother said.
    Before dinner, Aunt Fe said a blessing, even though my father asked her not to. He didn’t believe in blessings or in any kind of religion at all. It was just superstition, he said. But Aunt Fe insisted on saying grace because it was Thanksgiving. She closed her eyes and asked everyone at the table to tell something they were thankful for. There a long silence. Then Aunt Fe said she was thankful for the bounty of America. My mother was thankful for our family, and Uncle Petewas thankful that no one had given our turkey away. No one else was thankful for anything except for Mary, who muttered something about being treasurer of the fifth grade.
    My father seated Edgar at the kids’ end of the table, between Mary and me. As soon as he sat down, Mary wagged her finger at him. “I saw you,” she said. “You had your eyes open during grace.”
    Edgar didn’t answer. He took all his silverware off the table and wiped it carefully with the napkin in his lap.
    “I saw you,” Mary said again.
    Edgar stared at his plate. He cut his turkey into neat quarters and ate it. Then he ate his cranberry sauce, then his stuffing, then his roll. When all the other food was gone, he ate one miniature marshmallow and one yam.
    Mary poked him in the ribs. “Are you an orphan?” she asked.
    Edgar sighed. He put his head in his hands.
    “Is everything all right?” my mother called from her end of the table.
    “Just perfect, Mrs. Davitt,” he said.
    After dessert, Edgar excused himself. He thanked my mother for dinner and took his leave with a small bow.
    “He’s an odd duck, isn’t he?” my aunt said after he left. “And those shoes!”
    My mother sidestepped her and closed the door. “Edgar made those shoes himself,” she said.
    We went into the den to watch a tape of my uncle’s show. It was the season finale and no one had seen it yet. I sat up close to the TV with Alec. My father wandered in and out of the room, doing things. He bundled up the newspapers and took them outside. He changed a lightbulb and put away the mail. Then he oiled the