The Latchkey Kid Read Online Free

on the kitchen counter and begun to unpack them, when there was the sound of a heavy truck drawing up outside her house.
    “Mother!” almost wailed Mrs. Stych. “And the girls coming for bridge!”
    She trotted into the living-room, where three bridge tables had already been set out, and peeped through the picture window.
    Her mother was already clambering laboriously down from the seat beside the driver, displaying a lumpy mass of grey woollen stocking and woollen knickers in the process. Her brother was already changing gear, and as soon as the old lady was safely on the sidewalk the vehicle ground noisily forward, with its protesting load of smelly pigs, towards the market.
    Mrs. Stych felt a little relieved. At least that humiliating old truck would not be parked outside her door when the girls arrived. She could just imagine the scathing looks with which Mrs. Josephine MacDonald, the president of the Noble Order of Lady Queen Bees, would have regarded it. Perhaps, she hoped guiltily, Joe would return to pick up her mother and take her home before any of the guests arrived.
    The old lady’s footsteps could be heard, ponderous and threatening, on the front steps. Mrs. Stych vanished immediately into the kitchen and continued to put away groceries, as if unaware of her mother’s arrival.
    The porch door clicked as her mother slowly entered. There was the sound of feet being carefully wiped on the doormat, as once sharply requested by Mrs. Stych soon after her marriage had taken her into polite circles. Two heavy farm boots were then heaved off. The door into the living-room was opened.
    “Olga, where are you?” called her mother in Ruthenian, her brown, wrinkled face beaming. “I have come for three hourswhile Joe is selling the pigs.”
    Mrs. Stych, untying her apron, bustled out of the kitchen and tried not to show her despair.
    “Why, Mother!” she exclaimed, embracing the stout shoulders and implanting a kiss on her mother’s cheek. Is it really necessary for Mother to smell eternally of hens? she wondered, and ushered her into the kitchen so that the unmistakable odour should not permeate her carefully prepared living-room.
    Mrs. Palichuk sank onto a scarlet kitchen chair and eased off her drab grey winter coat so that it draped over the back, retaining, however, the black kerchief which modestly veiled her hair. She was dressed in a clumsy black skirt and a heavy grey cardigan, and, in honour of the occasion, had put on her best apron, which was white and had been exquisitely embroidered by herself. It always astonished Olga Stych that her mother’s horribly distorted hands, with their thick, horny nails, could produce such delicate embroidery and could paint with such skill the traditional patterns on eggshells at Eastertide.
    Mrs. Palichuk planted her stockinged feet squarely on the white and beige tiles of the kitchen floor, and looked around her. She enjoyed exploring the intricacies of her daughter’s kitchen. The electric toaster which turned itself off when the toast was done and the electric beater enthralled her. She was happy enough, however, to return to her own frame house, built by her husband after their first five bitter years, spent living in a sod hut. It was heated by a Quebec stove in the kitchen and she cooked with wood on another iron stove, and no cajoling by her widowed son, Joe, was going to make her alter her ways now.
    “Expecting visitors?” Mrs. Palichuk asked, speaking again in Ruthenian.
    As usual, Olga answered her in English. “Yeah,” she said, setting the coffee pot on the stove. She took out the electric beater and arranged it to beat cream, while Mrs. Palichuk watched, fascinated. “Eleven for lunch and bridge.”
    In her heart Olga Stych hoped her mother would take the hint and depart. Then she realized that the older woman could not go without Joe to transport her, and she wondered what in earth she was to do.
    Dimly, Mrs. Palichuk perceived that she was in the