The Place Will Comfort You Read Online Free Page B

in.
    â€œShould I take it out?”
    â€œTake it out.”
    She jerks the handle one way and the other, and free. Stone meal has stuck to the chocolate-greased metal, up to a point. She says, “Deep as this.”
    â€œYou made it worse.”
    â€œWith such a thin knife?”
    â€œMetal beats rock.”
    â€œSo metal made the crack?”
    â€œMy mother, with a pot.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œShe took it off the fire, ran, dropped it on the counter and leaped back.”
    The orphan finds the stain before I point it out, how could she not, a beet-red splatter on the ceiling, a wildly flaming planet, droplets violently striving everywhere. “I like borscht,” she says. “With sour cream and pepper. Why did she do it?”
    â€œPressure cookers make her nervous.”
    â€œSo why did she use one?”
    â€œTo save time.”
    â€œDid she get hurt?”
    â€œI told you she leaped back.”
    â€œYou saw?”
    â€œI heard.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œI came.”
    â€œAnd saw?”
    â€œHer hands shaking. She was sitting on the floor.”
    â€œDropped?”
    â€œLegs straight ahead.”
    â€œAnd no one helped?”
    â€œShe didn’t want at first but then she let. My father took her hands.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    â€œWhat did she say back?”
    â€œâ€˜God damn that pot.’”
    â€œWith you there?”
    â€œThey didn’t see me. That’s not her usual language.”
    â€œDid she take it back?”
    â€œShe didn’t say one more word. She looked like she had found him after a terrible, long trip.”
    â€œShow me the pot.”
    â€œI can’t.” I put out a hand and she gives back our knife. “My father threw it out. It was archaic and a hazard. Better technology is just around the corner.”
    â€œI could have told you that,” she says, again gazing up. Her chin is bearded with a dab of chocolate. She slips her fingers through her hair; they meet up at the crown, over the damaged patch, to feel it gently, then come apart. “For a whole week I didn’t dream,” the orphan says. “Last night I did. I bit right through a windowpane. Inside was light and outside dark. I bit a hole right through the middle of the glass, black in the middle of the shine, the shape of my mouth. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t not hurt, I didn’t feel any blood running.”
    I don’t see what this has to do with anything right now. “We have a big assignment in Leviticus.”
    â€œI don’t.” She keeps on staring at the stain, but glassy-eyed, bored sick.
    â€œThe teacher gave it after you got up and went.”
    She says, “Gave you. But I’m exempt.”
    â€œYou have chocolate on your chin.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œYou should wash it.”
    She says, “Let’s watch TV.”
    I almost laugh at her. Nothing can tempt me before five o’clocktoday. He comes on only once a year. I smile. “Only after homework. That’s my mother’s rules.”
    The orphan finger-pats her tough, blunt lock. “Maybe for you.”
    â€œWhat happened there?”
    She spins around to push the lid back on the chocolate. “Finish your boring work,” she says. “If you finished we’d have time.”
    â€œIt isn’t boring.” I lay the knife in the sink. She hands me the soft-sided tub, which I return to its home in the pantry.
    â€œBoring.” She licks her thumb, presses it onto the breadboard, then pecks off the coating of crumbs. “This year there’s no more story,” she says through speckled lips.
    â€œThere is.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYes. What do you call the people in the desert? Exodus they got away and headed out, right? The tabernacle was built to practice for the Future Temple? This year they are learning how to worship in it and