Spoonwood Read Online Free

right?” I say.
    â€œNot exactly.” The woman speaks softly and with confidence in an accent that is slightly British, slightly American southern, and slightly . . . I search in my mind for language and come up with the word “musical.” I’ve never quite heard anything like this woman’s lingo before.
    I point. “The estate is about a half-mile on the left. Drive in between the stone pillars. You won’t see the house from the road.”
    â€œOh, yes. I remember the pillars now. Thank you.”
    I watch the woman drive off. I’m thinking about the Salmon mansion, the Italianate architecture in the middle of a New England setting, the greenhouse where Lilith grew flowers, the lane where she planted lilac bushes on the day she gave birth and died. Even my nostalgia goes sour. Now I’m thinking about Persephone Salmon, Lilith’s mother, and how much I hate her and how much she hates me.
    Cooty hollers down from the cab. “What—what was that?”
    â€œI said, no doubt Persephone Salmon hates me for good reason,” I say.
    â€œRight—right,” Cooty says, blinking, in awe at the incomprehensibility of everything.
    At the end of the day I drop Cooty at his cabin in Donaldson and return to my parents’ place in Darby. I park the Old Honeywagon near the barn and go right to my camper, break out a bottle of Old Crow, and get a cold beer from my propane fridge. I pour myself a double shot, glug it down, and follow it with suds. It’s deathly hot in the camper, but I don’t intend to leave it until I get a good buzz on. I could drive right to the bar, but I want to be alone to enjoy the first hit of the booze. When it starts to wear down, I’m headed for a bar in Bellows Falls. I’m not even going to bother to shower—let the bastards smell the garbage, in the seams of my clothes, in the pores of my skin, in the interstices of my soul. Let them know what I am, even if I do not.
    Through the little aluminum frame window I can see my parents’ place. It used to consist of forty or more acres, but Howard had to sell off most of his land when he lost his job and the house burned down. My people are reduced to less than an acre. Every square foot is used—mobile home, barn, garden, shrine to the Virgin, junked cars (for parts), and just junk that Howard keeps for reasons of his own. My father recovered from his down days, a fact that gives me hope for myself.
    I note now that the Ford wagon, my mother’s vehicle of choice, is not in the lot. She must still be in transit from St. Johnsbury. I do some quick calculating. I have one chore that must be done—dump my camper toilet in the mobile home system. If I do it now, I’ll be able to avoid my mother and Birch. But first I must enjoy my fifteen minutes of euphoria.
    I go in just as Howard has finished his supper, beans and hot dogs. When he comes home from work he wants to eat right away. He’ll wait for no man and no wife. We exchange grunts for greetings. I’ve finished my business when my mother shows up with Birch. It’s her third trip to St. Johnsbury, and something about the way she looks at me catches my attention. Usually I can read her face—fallen with a bout of sadness, glowing when she prays, furrowed brow when she’s displeased, peaceful and open when she talks on the phone to my older sisters far away. But this evening I cannot tell what is on my mother’s mind. She certainly doesn’t look like a woman who has failed in her mission, because she’s smiling as if she’s about to tell a joke. At the same time she’s twitchy, as if she’d seen some bad news on TV. I tell myself she’s just tired, or maybe I’m projecting onto her a wedge of my own despair.
    â€œStick around, I have some news,” she says to me. She puts Birch on his back in the easy chair behind the dining table. I look at him for a second and