Three Good Things Read Online Free

the time I live in fear of her dying on me. The rest of the time I wish she
would disappear.
    Thinking like this always rattles me. And once I get stuck on thinking about all
this stuff, I feel like a gerbil on a hamster wheel, going round and round and round
with no way off.
    I head into the bathroom. Hot water gasps and sputters out when I turn on the bathtub
taps. I strip and lay my clothes on the toilet-seat lid. I make sure there is a towel
on the rail, flick the knob to turn on the shower and step in.
    Only a trickle comes out of the showerhead. The rest spurts from the tap and out
of the tub. “Crap!” I bundle myself in the towel, leap out of the tub and drag my
clothes back on without bothering to look for clean underwear.
    It’s been ages since we’ve been anywhere long enough to do laundry. I may have grown
up with thrift-store clothes, but I draw the line at wearing cast-off underwear.
    In big department stores, I wander through the fashion departments, trying to imagine
myself with new clothes. Grand will foot the bill for lots of things, but clothes
are hardly on his radar. While I’m there, it’s not hard to stuff a couple of pairs
of undies into my jacket sleeve or down my jeans.
    When I come out of the bathroom, Mom’s purse is still wedged under her pillow.
    Maybe the lottery ticket is in her jacket. She’s too out of it to notice me taking
it off the bed. I’ll be very careful and slow—
    “What?” Her flailing hand catches the side of my chin. The impact wakes her. She
hauls herself up.
    “Shh, Mom. Go back to sleep.”
    “What you doing?” Her voice is thick.
    “I tried to have a shower. It doesn’t work.”
    “I’d like a bath.” She struggles off the bed, mumbling, “It’s cold in here.”
    While she is in the bathroom, I find enough tissues in her pockets to carry the bubonic
plague. I dump them in the garbage. Her duffel bag holds a sweater, three stained
T-shirts and a pair of pants that are too long.
    Poor people give themselves away without even opening their wallets. Ill-fitting
clothes that aren’t washed often do it every time.
    I’m trying to figure out where that ticket might be—if it really exists—when I almost
trip on her shoe. I peer inside it. I notice the crease in the sole. I peel it back.
    Would you look at this? The ticket! Not that finding it makes Mom any less crazy.
    I’m trying to make some sense of the numbers—7-11-23-29-37-49—when she comes back
into the room. “Give me that!”
    I hold the ticket out of reach. “We should get it checked out.”
    “I did already.”
    “Worth millions?” I study the numbers again.
    “Maybe not millions. But a lot.”
    “How much of a lot? By the way, you might want to do up your pants.”
    As she checks her fly, I jam the ticket in my pocket. When she looks up again, I
pretend to be straightening the sole of the shoe. I hand it to her. “Put this on.
The carpet’s probably not been cleaned in years. I see you changed your mind about
the bath.”
    “I’m hungry. Let’s go find a sub or something.” She slips on her shoe, then frowns
at her other bare foot.
    “In the bathroom maybe?” I say.
    As soon as she leaves the room, I tuck the lottery ticket deeper into my pocket.
It’s probably worth nothing. But just in case.

C h a p t e r S i x
    We spend the evening sharing a foot-long sub and watching reruns with the lights
out. I study Mom’s eager face in the flickering light as she devours everyone else’s
funny lives, which hardly get a laugh out of me.
    Next day, she’s awake before me. I doubt she has even washed her face. But she is
wearing more blush than a clown. If you can spot poor people at a hundred meters
by their clothes, it is crazy women’s makeup that gives them away. “You’ve overdone
it a bit, Mom.” I hand her a tissue when I come back out of the bathroom.
    Do I try to make her look normal for her sake? Or mine?
    She takes the tissue from me, frowns at it, then stuffs it in her