Valley Fever Read Online Free Page A

better.”
    â€œI told you, she won’t do it,” Anne said. “But you should have a slice of nectarine or something, Ingrid.”
    â€œThere are no nectarines,” Mother said.
    â€œNo nectarines either?”
    â€œYou could have grapes,” Mother said. “We have plenty of grapes.”
    Vines would save us. That’s what the tree fruit people always say—when the tree fruit doesn’t work, the vines save you. Years you can’t sell your grapes or the rain comes before the raisins are dry, the peaches and nectarines and almonds keep you going.
    â€œGive her a drink,” Anne said to our mother.
    â€œIt’s not even three.”
    â€œGive her a drink, it’s got grain in it.” Anne took a tumbler from the cabinet and piled it with frozen Thompson seedless, one of the earliest grapes to be harvested in the valley, grapes that Mother had probably picked herself from the vines near the house, individually washed and plucked from the rachis and placed in freezer bags to be used instead of ice. “And loads of nutritious fruit,” Anne said, pouring five counts of vodka to the rim. “Eat,” she said, handing me the glass.
    Mother said, “I don’t like that, Anne. I don’t like it.” She went back to her cards.
    I drank the vodka and I ate the slushy, vodka-soaked grapes, and then I ate a piece of bread from a loaf open on the counter.
    â€œOne piece of bread at a time,” Anne said.
    It was easier to eat after I’d had a drink.
    â€œIf we have to drink vodka, we drink it with grapes,” Mother said.
    â€œShe has to drink vodka,” Anne said.
    I ate the bread and went upstairs. The house continued to vibrate with the sound of voices from the kitchen.
    Mom and Dad built the house on the river when Anne and I were tiny. It had long 1970s ranch-type lines, open Frank Lloyd Wright spaces finished with red Mexican tiles and dark wood. There was an enormous fireplace in the living room—twelve feet wide and six feet high—large enough so that the huge trunks of felled walnut trees could be brought in to burn. Mr. Ellison next door grew almonds and walnuts, and kept Mom and Dad in giant-sized firewood. Sometimes, in December or January, with the flue left open, the wind would come down that chimney like thunder, like an earthquake, and the white walls of the living room would turn black with ash.
    Mother considered building the house on the river the great achievement of her life. On the coffee table in the living room, she kept a thirty-year-old copy of Sunset magazine, the cover faded into beige, featuring a six-page spread of the house just after it was finished. Inside, Mother and Dad were thin and glamorous, glossy and coifed in their riverside vineyard.
    My old bedroom had framed pictures of me as Helen Keller in the fifth grade and packs of girls at Friday-night football games. (Stella was dead now, killed on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle; Eileen had developed a cocaine habit to accompany her eating disorders and married the son of a developer in town; I’d heard that Bootsie had returned to Fresno well after our falling out in New York—Bootsie, I missed her the most.) My slouchy high school silhouette, carved by George Sweet from the side of a Kleenex box, still wedged into the windowpane, exactly where he had put it fifteen years ago. Sweet George Sweet.
    I liked the heat. You could feel it in your chest, like an emotion. The heat was something you could count on. I took off my clothes and fell asleep, the kind of sleep so heavy you don’t know how long you’ve been under by the time you get up.

 
    3.
    Uncle Felix drank wine with every meal, including two tablespoons in his coffee at breakfast. He was round and red and always happy. Uncle Felix was Dad’s oldest friend. Their parents’ and grandparents’ vineyards had been side by side. Uncle Felix’s big fat