The Sky Below Read Online Free
Author: Stacey D'Erasmo
shower were bars of thin motel soap, and in a closet there was a stack of thin, white motel towels. Every towel that I unfolded, then refolded, had a shadowy, indelible stain on it.
âA single man had this place before us,â said my mother. âThatâs what Sheila said. He had some kind of trouble.â She walked toward the kitchen, which wasnât really a kitchen; it was just a raised place between the living room and dining room with a stove and a sink. My mother opened the two thin, white cabinet doors, closed them again. For an instant I wondered if that single man was my father. Maybe we had luckily, coincidentally, followed him, like in a movie. Maybe he was at a diner in town, having a cup of coffee.
I went to plug in the television set, but found that the cord was cut, like a bobbed tail. Ragged bits of wire stuck out of the stump that was left. Why, I wondered, would someone do that? Would my father do something like that? But I couldnât convince even myself of my story. I had gotten so much older on the drive down. I knew he hadnât been there. It wasnât him. He wasnât waiting for us at the diner, or anywhere else. Aunt Sheila was right: he wasnât coming back. I set his radio on the kitchen counter.
âWhoa,â said Caroline, walking around, making a hollow noise on the linoleum. âWhoa.â
Sometimes I ask myself if it would have been different if weâd never had to move. If I would have been different. Maybe
I mean the opposite: if weâd never had to move, I wouldnât have changed in the way I did. And did the change begin in Brewster? Or before? Things have a way of flowing on, one rivulet leading to the next. I canât make it all out. When I go back in my mind, I see a gate connected to nothing, a house with a City inside, five unfinished guitars, and then all the rest, eventually bumping down to Florida like a ball bumping down a staircase. Itâs only in retrospect that it all seems inevitable, that I seem inevitable. Maybe it happened because we were in Brewster for such a long time, longer than I ever would have thought was possible when we got there, when I was eight. We were there so long that the house in Massachusetts started to seem like a dream, a dream of a City made out of wrapping paper where purple rivers ran over ice and City Hall was an overturned Jupiter Telescope box and lions twined themselves around chair legs. Or maybe it was always supposed to turn out the way it did. I donât really know.
What broke my heart was that my mother and my sister seemed to have forgotten the house in Massachusetts, and the City, and the symphony in the kitchen sink, to have forgotten everything that mattered. Somewhere on the long road from north to south, possibly while I was sleeping, they had let our life melt away, like ice in the sun. Instead, they were always busy. My mother took charge of the Sunburst Motel with a vengeance. She and my sister got up early every day to mop the floors, turn on the cash register, kill any snakes that needed killing. They saved change in a coffee can. They briskly washed the sand off their feet at night; they painted their toenails; they watched
The Love Boat
on television every week. Every day, I dragged myself off to the stable for broken-down nags that was disguised as Brewsterâs elementary school. When the teachers talked, all I heard was whinnies. At night, I lay in bed and watched the shadows moving restlessly over the ceiling: bears chasing girls in pigtails, clouds that might be ships, puffs of
smoke. I tried to will myself up there, where they were, but I always failed.
Maybe it was because I couldnât make it up onto the ceiling with the bears and ships, but at the time it felt like I started breaking into houses because it was easy. Nobody locked their doors in Brewster, not back then, and I didnât even take anything at first. All I wanted, at the beginning, was to
âA single man had this place before us,â said my mother. âThatâs what Sheila said. He had some kind of trouble.â She walked toward the kitchen, which wasnât really a kitchen; it was just a raised place between the living room and dining room with a stove and a sink. My mother opened the two thin, white cabinet doors, closed them again. For an instant I wondered if that single man was my father. Maybe we had luckily, coincidentally, followed him, like in a movie. Maybe he was at a diner in town, having a cup of coffee.
I went to plug in the television set, but found that the cord was cut, like a bobbed tail. Ragged bits of wire stuck out of the stump that was left. Why, I wondered, would someone do that? Would my father do something like that? But I couldnât convince even myself of my story. I had gotten so much older on the drive down. I knew he hadnât been there. It wasnât him. He wasnât waiting for us at the diner, or anywhere else. Aunt Sheila was right: he wasnât coming back. I set his radio on the kitchen counter.
âWhoa,â said Caroline, walking around, making a hollow noise on the linoleum. âWhoa.â
Sometimes I ask myself if it would have been different if weâd never had to move. If I would have been different. Maybe
I mean the opposite: if weâd never had to move, I wouldnât have changed in the way I did. And did the change begin in Brewster? Or before? Things have a way of flowing on, one rivulet leading to the next. I canât make it all out. When I go back in my mind, I see a gate connected to nothing, a house with a City inside, five unfinished guitars, and then all the rest, eventually bumping down to Florida like a ball bumping down a staircase. Itâs only in retrospect that it all seems inevitable, that I seem inevitable. Maybe it happened because we were in Brewster for such a long time, longer than I ever would have thought was possible when we got there, when I was eight. We were there so long that the house in Massachusetts started to seem like a dream, a dream of a City made out of wrapping paper where purple rivers ran over ice and City Hall was an overturned Jupiter Telescope box and lions twined themselves around chair legs. Or maybe it was always supposed to turn out the way it did. I donât really know.
What broke my heart was that my mother and my sister seemed to have forgotten the house in Massachusetts, and the City, and the symphony in the kitchen sink, to have forgotten everything that mattered. Somewhere on the long road from north to south, possibly while I was sleeping, they had let our life melt away, like ice in the sun. Instead, they were always busy. My mother took charge of the Sunburst Motel with a vengeance. She and my sister got up early every day to mop the floors, turn on the cash register, kill any snakes that needed killing. They saved change in a coffee can. They briskly washed the sand off their feet at night; they painted their toenails; they watched
The Love Boat
on television every week. Every day, I dragged myself off to the stable for broken-down nags that was disguised as Brewsterâs elementary school. When the teachers talked, all I heard was whinnies. At night, I lay in bed and watched the shadows moving restlessly over the ceiling: bears chasing girls in pigtails, clouds that might be ships, puffs of
smoke. I tried to will myself up there, where they were, but I always failed.
Maybe it was because I couldnât make it up onto the ceiling with the bears and ships, but at the time it felt like I started breaking into houses because it was easy. Nobody locked their doors in Brewster, not back then, and I didnât even take anything at first. All I wanted, at the beginning, was to
Readers choose
Brent Weeks
Franklin W. Dixon
Jim Shepard
Alannah Carbonneau
Kate McMullan
Victor Appleton II
Krysten Lindsay Hager
Henry James
Kim Itae