The Book of Living and Dying Read Online Free
Author: Natale Ghent
began to work its way up the back of her neck. Her eyes flickered around the room. If she reached her hand out for the aspirin bottle, would he grab it? She couldn’t take that chance. Her thoughts hopscotched from childhood images of John to demonic ghosts circling her bed. Forcing goodthoughts to the forefront, she attempted to subdue her fear, to trick the ghost into thinking that she wasn’t afraid. Her temples throbbed as the pain crept up to its usual spot across her brow. She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly opened them again, then shot her hand out and plucked the aspirin bottle from the crate. Snapping her hand back under the covers, she waited. Nothing happened. She was okay.
Sarah clicked on the light, swallowed a couple aspirins, then got up and walked over to her dresser. From the bottom drawer she produced an old shoebox and two red plastic binders marked “Photos.” Sitting with one foot tucked beneath her on the bed, she began flipping through one of the binders. She always looked at them in the same order. Chronologically. Except for the photos she kept in the box, the ones of the family before she came along. She kept them separate, because there was something about them that seemed to warrant it. Her father was in all of those early pictures—handsome, several years older than her mother. Holding John as an infant, as a toddler, playing ball with his son. The house neater, well appointed, her mother’s near-frantic expressions of joy. All of this seemed to change when Sarah was born, seven years after John. The atmosphere in the house cooling, a shabbiness settling like frost over everything, her father’s slow migration out of the camera’s view.
Turning the page, Sarah stopped to study a Christmas photo. It showed her and John beaming in front of the tree, the doll she had received that year slumped in a small wooden chair off to one side. John wearing a cowboy outfit, the holster slung low over his hips, hat tilted back. In the background, her mother sat with one arm draped across her knees, hair covered in the requisite kerchief, skin as pale as the soles of her new terrycloth slippers, her gaze trained onsome vanishing point in the distance. And then her father, outside the frame for the most part, only his legs visible from his favourite chair, the accompanying black glass ashtray on its brass stand, the ever-present tumbler of scotch clasped in one hand, poised. The alcohol that had infused every part of their life, tolerated by her mother like an embarrassing relative. Had he ever loved any of them? Always justifying his road warrior lifestyle with some delusion of “hitting it big,” of “landing the big fish,” the perfect opportunity just waiting to be capitalized on, the promise of better things to come. His sudden rushes of exuberance, the attempts at affection, her mother’s refusal, pushing him away in the kitchen:
Leave me alone!
And Sarah’s guilty voyeurism, watching through the kitchen window from her spot among the bergamot. Why wouldn’t she give daddy another chance? But,
no, no, no, eighteen miserable years for what?
And later his dedication to the job turned out to be a front, a pantomime, masking his true desire to be free. Her mother’s silent hatred filling the house, the dishes clattering out accusations in the sink.
Craven.
John was the brave one, with his attempted escape from the joyless carousel of family life until the illness pulled him back in. Sarah felt the familiar ache resonating in her chest, the warm buzz reaching her cheeks as the clouds of grief gathered. Would the hole in her heart ever heal? She had filled it with anything she could find—the cold fist of anger, the liquid drip of sorrow, the anesthetizing patch of drugs and alcohol—but still the hole whistled and gaped, refusing to mend. Tears blurred her vision as she looked at the photos. Their Christmases were more obligations than celebrations, a vestigial ritual upheld by weary
Sarah clicked on the light, swallowed a couple aspirins, then got up and walked over to her dresser. From the bottom drawer she produced an old shoebox and two red plastic binders marked “Photos.” Sitting with one foot tucked beneath her on the bed, she began flipping through one of the binders. She always looked at them in the same order. Chronologically. Except for the photos she kept in the box, the ones of the family before she came along. She kept them separate, because there was something about them that seemed to warrant it. Her father was in all of those early pictures—handsome, several years older than her mother. Holding John as an infant, as a toddler, playing ball with his son. The house neater, well appointed, her mother’s near-frantic expressions of joy. All of this seemed to change when Sarah was born, seven years after John. The atmosphere in the house cooling, a shabbiness settling like frost over everything, her father’s slow migration out of the camera’s view.
Turning the page, Sarah stopped to study a Christmas photo. It showed her and John beaming in front of the tree, the doll she had received that year slumped in a small wooden chair off to one side. John wearing a cowboy outfit, the holster slung low over his hips, hat tilted back. In the background, her mother sat with one arm draped across her knees, hair covered in the requisite kerchief, skin as pale as the soles of her new terrycloth slippers, her gaze trained onsome vanishing point in the distance. And then her father, outside the frame for the most part, only his legs visible from his favourite chair, the accompanying black glass ashtray on its brass stand, the ever-present tumbler of scotch clasped in one hand, poised. The alcohol that had infused every part of their life, tolerated by her mother like an embarrassing relative. Had he ever loved any of them? Always justifying his road warrior lifestyle with some delusion of “hitting it big,” of “landing the big fish,” the perfect opportunity just waiting to be capitalized on, the promise of better things to come. His sudden rushes of exuberance, the attempts at affection, her mother’s refusal, pushing him away in the kitchen:
Leave me alone!
And Sarah’s guilty voyeurism, watching through the kitchen window from her spot among the bergamot. Why wouldn’t she give daddy another chance? But,
no, no, no, eighteen miserable years for what?
And later his dedication to the job turned out to be a front, a pantomime, masking his true desire to be free. Her mother’s silent hatred filling the house, the dishes clattering out accusations in the sink.
Craven.
John was the brave one, with his attempted escape from the joyless carousel of family life until the illness pulled him back in. Sarah felt the familiar ache resonating in her chest, the warm buzz reaching her cheeks as the clouds of grief gathered. Would the hole in her heart ever heal? She had filled it with anything she could find—the cold fist of anger, the liquid drip of sorrow, the anesthetizing patch of drugs and alcohol—but still the hole whistled and gaped, refusing to mend. Tears blurred her vision as she looked at the photos. Their Christmases were more obligations than celebrations, a vestigial ritual upheld by weary
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