Our Daily Bread Read Online Free

torn. Well, he thought as he jogged up the steps, this weekend for sure.
    He entered the house and stepped over a mound of shoes and boots inside the front door. In the living room, unfolded laundry overflowed a tattered wicker basket on the couch. Rascal, the black and white mongrel, rose up from his bed atop a scatter of loose CDs and their plastic cases. The dog stretched, extending his claws into the discs. The resultant scrape set Tom’s teeth on edge. A cartoon of the roadrunner and the coyote flickered on the television, but the sound was turned down. He walked toward the sound of running water and clattering plates coming from the kitchen.
    Patty stood at the sink rinsing off dishes. She had her jacket on, the blue and white striped smock Wilton’s Groceries made all their cashiers wear hanging below it. Tom picked up a piece of toast that had fallen to the floor in the morning’s mayhem. He bent down to kiss the back of his wife’s neck. She smelled of patchouli and lemony soap. A reddish-gold curl escaped from where she had gathered it, messily, enticingly, atop her head. He aimed for a tiny brown mole.
    She shrieked and jumped back, a wooden spoon in her hand, ready to clout him. “Shit, Tom. You scared me!”
    His lips were frozen in mid-pucker. Her face was a mix of rage and shock that seemed excessive. “Sorry. I thought you heard me,” he said. Tom Evans had a voice so deep Patty said it was a well in need of an echo. It fit his size, for he was all shoulders and arms, kept strong from the flats of bread he slung around as if they were no heavier than paper and meringue. Patty was forever telling him to be careful of things he might break without realizing it. When Ivy and Bobby were small and he’d held their wrists and swung them round in circles, she said, “You’ll dislocate their shoulders. You’ll bash their brains out against a wall.” But the children just laughed and laughed and asked for more. When Ivy was nothing more than a diaper with a big pair of brown eyes he’d bounced her on his palm, like a quarter he was flipping, and even though Patty had said nothing, he caught her looking at him now and then, her pale brows drawn in disapprovingly. Whether from a fear he’d drop the baby or from a dislike of roughhousing in general, he never could decide. Of course, at ten and fifteen respectively, Ivy and Bobby were too big for that now. But even when they were babies, Tom had never understood why Patty didn’t know how careful he was with them. He would never do anything to put his children in harm’s way. They were everything to him. They were the miracles of his life, as was Patty. The miracles that changed everything, forever.
    Now, she stared at him with that look of irritation he was, sadly, becoming accustomed to. She wiped her bangs off her forehead with the hand still holding the wooden spoon. A dribble of water fell from the cuff of the pink rubber gloves she wore, staining the front of her suede jacket. She looked down at it and then up at him. “You’re late.”
    â€œYeah, The Indian Head said I got the order wrong and Dave wanted to have an argument.”
    â€œI thought the motel cancelled delivery.”
    â€œThey started up again.” He leaned in to kiss her, but it was a clumsy move and he mostly kissed her nose. “Maybe things are going better over there.”
    â€œWho eats at a motel?”
    â€œI don’t know. People who stay there.”
    She turned back to the sink. “Who stays at a cheap motel in a pissy little town like this in March?”
    â€œI don’t know. It’s on the highway. Truckers. Salesmen, I guess.” Tom was unsure why they were having this conversation. He put his arms around her, kissed that place on her neck. “Kids all right this morning?”
    â€œAs all right as they ever are. Sniping at each other. Bickering. Bobby hardly speaks. I