The River's Edge Read Online Free Page A

Paige kept asking me questions.
    Not long after, Uncle Butch’s station wagon pulled up to the
cottage. He came inside, went right to my mom, and hugged her. “It’s so good to
see you again. It’s been too long.” He threw the car keys and his Lucky Strike
cigarette pack on the side table next to the chair.
    “It has been too long,” Mom said, hugging him back.
    “Hi, Uncle Butch,” I said.
    “Well, hello,” he said. He came over and hugged me. I missed my
father and it felt good to be hugged by him. “You’re all grown up. Pretty, too.
You definitely get that from our side of the family, right, Jo?” He laughed.
    “Yeah, right,” Mom said. “Like Mama always said, ‘We come from
good stock.’”
    “Girls, set the table for dinner please,” my aunt said and
disappeared into the kitchen.
    A few minutes later, my aunt came in from the kitchen and placed
bowls of fried chicken and mashed potatoes in front of us. Mom brought in
sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob. My stomach grumbled when I saw all that
good food. After my dad left, Mom didn’t cook much. We usually just heated up
frozen dinners and ate in front of the TV and watched The Brady Bunch . I
always imagined my mom re-marrying and I would have a whole houseful of step
sisters and we would all be happy, and I would never feel alone again because
me and my new step sisters would all be best friends.
    Uncle Butch sat down at the head of the table and ran his fingers
through his dark hair, the same color as Mom’s.
    It was hard to believe that he and my mom had ever been my age.
One time my mom showed me an old black-and-white photo of them when she was
thirteen and he was twelve. Looking at the dog-eared photograph, I couldn’t
imagine my mother ever that pretty, with her long dark hair framing her face.
She cut her hair short before I was born and always styled it up and away from
her face. She seemed mysterious in the photo, like she was hiding something.
    “Uncle Butch?” I asked.
    “Yeah, sweetie?”
    “What about Grandpa?” I knew a little about my grandmother, and
even remembered her before she died, but I had never met my grandfather. Mom
never talked about him much so I thought this was the perfect time to find out
more about my relatives.
    “Well . . .” He put down his fork as if trying to find the
memories.
    “Mom said he smoked a pipe.” I was hoping this would jog a memory
loose because Mom had hers all wrapped up tight in her memory cave.
    “He did smoke a pipe. I still remember the sweet smell of cherry
tobacco. I love that smell,” Uncle Butch said.
    “I hate that smell. It makes me sick to my
stomach,” Mom said.
    “What? You used to love it,” Uncle Butch said.
    “Well, that’s what got him in the end, isn’t it. Throat cancer.
Now I can’t stand the smell. It reminds me of death. It destroyed his vocal
cords and he couldn’t even speak in the end. But his mind was sharp. It was a
shame that he was trapped inside his own head and he couldn’t tell us what he
was thinking.” She stopped abruptly. I knew she had more to say. I saw it in
the urgency in her eyes.
    I shifted in my seat, sorry I brought it up.
    “He also loved hot sauce on just about everything, including
eggs.” Uncle Butch’s voice was low, easing into the heated air like a light
breeze. “Remember, Jo? There was always a bottle on the table and he used it
like salt. We always had plenty of Frank’s hot sauce because he worked at the
factory.”
    My mom’s face softened. “And he loved to listen to the Cincinnati
Reds on his transistor radio. Everyone in the house had to be quiet when he was
listening to his baseball game.” As quickly as her face softened, it suddenly
squeezed up into a tight ball of wrinkles. “He had a mean streak, too. Let’s
not forget that.”
    “Yeah, he did. But that’s what made him unique.”
    “Unique? Is that what you call it?” Mom’s voice pitched up as if
her memory cave was shaking itself