Three Twisted Stories Read Online Free Page A

popped up from her chair without asking for permission. She caught the kitchen phone on the second ring, and Charlie guessed that was all the exercise she was ever gonna get—running to the phone, hoping it was a boy but hearing instead one of her girlfriends on the line talking about another boy who was never going to ask her out.
    When Charlie was her age, he was working at the cotton mill seven days a week. If he thought about it hard enough, he could still hear the thunderous clap of the belt that spun the gin. The vibrations shook the floor. Even when he wasn’t working, he could still feel the tiny earthquakes underneath his feet.
    The whole time he worked at the mill, Charlie tithed to himself, keeping ten percent of whatever he made and giving the rest to his mother. He felt guilty for keeping that ten percent, but he kept telling himself that once he got out, he would find some way to save the rest of them.
    That hadn’t exactly happened. By the time Charlie was standing on his own two feet, his mother was dead. Throat cancer, probably from swallowing down all the words she would never say to his father. The old man disappeared, which meant it fell to Charlie to make sure the last four kids who were still living at home were taken care of.
    They were all adults now, but they still expected Charlie to take care of them.
    What he learned early on was that people didn’t really want to be saved. They said theywanted help, but no matter what you did, they always found a way to end up back in the same place they started.
    What was it Salmeri had said?
    Nobody really likes change, even the people who need it most
.
    That was the damn truth. Charlie had rented his sister an apartment to get her away from her abusive husband. Two months later, the husband was living in the apartment on Charlie’s dime. He bought his younger brother a bunch of Snappers so he could start a landscaping business, but then the brother pissed off all his customers and ended up drinking beer all day. Charlie paid off another sister’s credit card debt. A year later, she’d opened up three accounts and was planning a dream vacation to Florida.
    Charlie hadn’t taken a vacation in sixteen years.
    By far the stupidest thing he ever did for his family was buy them cars. Not new cars, but good cars. With the trademark helpless arrogance of the Lam family, the complaints started almost immediately. One brother said the other brother got a better ride. One of his sisters wanted a convertible, like she could park a car like that in her neighborhood and expect it to still be there in the morning. No one took care of the vehicles. They didn’t change the oil. They didn’t rotate the tires. Hell, they didn’t even wash them.
    Three siblings failed to pay insurance; the cars were impounded and they all expected Charlie to bail them out. Another brother got so many tickets his license was pulled. He still drove the car. The car was impounded. He came to Charlie with his hand out. Yet another brother ended up getting drunk and mowing down a kid on a bike. A black kid, sure, but it still cost real money to get him out of the jam.
    All of it somehow ended up being Charlie’s fault.
    “Daddy?”
    Charlie swallowed the lump of steak in his mouth. The way his daughter had said the word made him think this wasn’t the first time. “What is it, honey?”
    “I asked is it all right if I go to the baseball game with Gina and Libby? Their father got tickets from work.”
    Charlie seldom looked at his daughter, which was why he was always surprised when he actually saw her face. In his head, she was a chubby, sticky little girl with fat fingers that reminded him of Vienna sausages who could be bribed to go away with either candy or cash.
    He saw her now. She was fifteen years old. The baby fat had left her waist but still settled in her cheeks. She was wearing too much makeup. The foundation was thick enough to scratch his name in. The green eye shadow was