The Bubble Reputation Read Online Free Page B

Rosemary, who tried to sidetrack her with candy, a television program, a magazine, until Mother at last forgot that she had even asked the question about Father.
    This memory loss happened to many people, Rosemary was surprised to learn, and they had managed to go about life effectively, to hold jobs, raise a family, have hobbies. It was hard work for them, but it could be done. Yet Mother’s problem was more than just the terrible brain malfunction. Her emotional instabilities had cropped up years earlier, before the fall. Rosemary remembered days of coming home from school to find Mother wrapped in a blanket, in the heat of June, sobbing. “We’re all going to die someday,” was the only excuse she could offer. When Father did die, the year Rosemary turned ten, Mother experienced her first real wash of craziness. “His heart,” she said of the organ that had killed her husband, “must have known what was best.” But she never really pulled out of the low dive his death had thrust her into. She cried often and was forgetful. Scatterbrained at best.
    The family had learned to deal with it simply as Mother’s ups and downs. But the woman who emerged from the hospital two years after Father’s death, after the fall, could hardly be called forgetful . She had gone from scatterbrained to Mad Hatter. Robbie barely remembered her as anything but crazy. Miriam remembered nothing more than embarrassment in front of her teenaged friends. “Personally, I think she jumped,” Miriam said often of the stepladder incident. Rosemary had been so caught up in losing Father that when she finally came around to ask questions, Mother was gone, too. In her place was a woman who wanted nothing more from her children than the courtesy one receives from strangers when meeting them on the street, when dining with them in the same restaurant, and plenty of soft chocolates.
    In Rosemary’s lovely dining room, upon the old oak table, the family ate dinner and mentioned everyone and everything but William. She was thankful. The suicide was not a subject she wanted brought up, something to be discussed as minutes of the meeting. She saw a great irony in the fact that William was the only person with whom she could discuss such a delicate issue.
    â€œI’m a homicide away from doing something to Mrs. Abernathy,” Uncle Bishop said, and passed the garlic bread to Rosemary, who took a buttered piece and passed it on to Robbie. “She’s threatening to have Ralph shot if he comes near her bird feeder again.”
    â€œCan’t you just keep him away?” asked Rosemary.
    â€œBut Ralphie’s a tomcat,” Uncle Bishop explained. “He’s already sprayed the daylights out of that tray feeder, and now he thinks it’s his.”
    â€œI’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous,” said Miriam.
    â€œMiriam knows what spraying is, don’t you, Miriam?” Uncle Bishop asked. “I’ve seen your husbands dripping at the altar.” He forked a large spool of spaghetti into his mouth. Miriam snatched her garlic bread away from Mother, who had reached a hand out to steal it. “Personally, I think Ralphie is getting the raw end of this deal,” Uncle Bishop continued. “He’s even blamed for the dead birds Mrs. Abernathy sees along the road, miles from the house.”
    â€œDid I get a letter from Aunt Sophie?” Mother asked suddenly. There was a short silence. Robbie was the one to finally ask.
    â€œWho the hell is Aunt Sophie?”
    ***
    â€œYou always do the dishes when we’re at your house,” Rosemary said to Uncle Bishop. “Just take Mother in by the fire and I’ll cram everything into the dishwasher.”
    Miriam offered to help and followed Rosemary to the kitchen with water glasses and a handful of forks. Rosemary suspected something else. It had been three months since Miriam had complained to her about