Paradise Read Online Free Page B

That’s all the nephew can think of. Four-hundred-yard dashers or even the three-mile runners. The heads of two of them are thrown back as far as their necks will allow; fists tight as their arms pump and stretch for distance. One has her nappy head down, butting air and time wide open, one hand reaching for a winner’s wire nowhere in her future. Their mouths are open, pulling in breath, giving up none. The legs of all are off the ground, split wide above the clover.
    Bodacious black Eves unredeemed by Mary, they are like panicked does leaping toward a sun that has finished burning off the mist and now pours its holy oil over the hides of game.
    God at their side, the men take aim. For Ruby.

MAVIS

    T he neighbors seemed pleased when the babies smothered. Probably because the mint green Cadillac in which they died had annoyed them for some time. They did all the right things, of course: brought food, telephoned their sorrow, got up a collection; but the shine of excitement in their eyes was clear.
    When the journalist came, Mavis sat in the corner of the sofa, not sure whether to scrape the potato chip crumbs from the seams of the plastic cover or tuck them further in. But the journalist wanted the photo taken first, so the photographer ordered Mavis to the middle of the sofa, with the surviving children on either side of their distraught and grieving mother. She asked for the father too, of course. Jim? Is it Jim Albright? But Mavis said he wasn’t feeling so good, couldn’t come out, they’d have to go ahead without him. The journalist and the photographer exchanged looks, and Mavis thought they probably knew anyway that Frank—not Jim—was sitting on the edge of the bathtub drinking Seagram’s without a glass.
    Mavis moved to the center of the sofa and cleaned her fingernails of potato chip dust until the other children joined her. The “other children” is what they would always be now. Sal put her arm around her mother’s waist. Frankie and Billy James were squished together on her right. Sal pinched her, hard. Mavis knew instantly that her daughter wasn’t nervous before the camera and all, because the pinch grew long, pointed. Sal’s fingernails were diving for blood.
    “This must be terrible for you.” Her name, she said, was June.
    “Yes, m’am. It’s terrible for all of us.”
    “Is there something you want to say? Something you want other mothers to know?”
    “M’am?”
    June crossed her knees and Mavis saw that this was the first time she had worn the white high-heeled shoes. The soles were barely smudged. “You know. Something to warn them, caution them, about negligence.”
    “Well.” Mavis took a deep breath. “I can’t think of any. I guess. I.”
    The photographer squatted, cocking his head as he examined the possibilities.
    “So some good can come out of this awful tragedy?” June’s smile was sad.
    Mavis straightened against the success of Sal’s fingernails. The camera clicked. June moved her felt-tipped pen into place. It was a fine thing. Mavis had never seen anything like it—made ink on the paper but dry, not all blotty. “I don’t have nothing to say to strangers right now.”
    For the second time the photographer adjusted the front window shade and walked back to the sofa holding a black box to Mavis’ face.
    “I understand,” said June. Her eyes went soft, but the shine was like that of the neighbors. “And I do hate to put you through this, but maybe you could just tell me what happened? Our readers are simply appalled. Twins and all. Oh, and they want you to know you are in their prayers every single day.” She let her glance sweep the boys and Sal. “And you all too. They are praying for each and every one of you.”
    Frankie and Billy James looked down at their bare feet. Sal rested her head on her mother’s shoulder while she clenched the flesh at Mavis’ waist.
    “So could you tell us?” June smiled a smile that meant “Do me this