Warpaint Read Online Free Page B

stops, snaps his jaws shut and saunters away, safe inside his ancient armor, hungry still.
    Thing of it was, Tucker just giggled. When Tom saw his son’s bright, laughing eyes, he turned the boy over a knee, right there, in front of everyone, lowered the sodden diaper, and whacked him until his white, new flesh reddened. Standing the half-naked child on his feet, the doctor scolded, but Tucker had become a ball of fury, a fury so fierce Dr. Davis slapped the cheek of it, and astonished, the boy sat down. Yanking his son back up, Dr. Davis carried him by his arms, his chubby legs stiff with surprise, to the screen porch. He sat him on a wicker chair and said,
    â€œTucker, you will sit here, by yourself, until Father comes for you. And if you so much as move, you will sit here longer. And if you mess yourself, you will get another spanking. Understand me?”
    And then Tom Davis made sure that whatever the rest of his family did that day, they did it in front of Tucker’s watching eyes. C.C. remembers him vividly on that porch, his face hot, baby-fat hands clutching chubby knees, his cherry red mouth set.
    Three months later, that same winter on Long Island: it is a Saturday in late December. Tom leaves the farmhouse after lunch, to chop firewood. After dropping her two older kids at their grandparents’ house, Nancy begins canning mint jam. Tucker, now taller, less chubby, has a cold.
    â€œMama?”
    Nancy looks up from the hot, sweet reduction. Her mason jars, lined up like portly glass soldiers, wait to swallow their duty. Tucker, his hair in a tangle, his green flannel pajamas rumpled, stands barefoot at the kitchen door.
    â€œSweetheart, what are you doing downstairs?” She comes over to him, crouching down, smoothing her skirt under her. She fingers his forehead, which is cool. “Are you feeling better?”
    The child nods, sniffling and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. He reaches out to touch the top of her apron with small, white fingers.
    â€œWell, honey, you don’t have a fever.” She stands up, re-ties her apron in the back, and finds him a tissue in its front pocket. “Here, now blow that nose.”
    Glancing up over his tissue he says, “Mama, can I get my books?”
    â€œOf course you can. Where did you leave them?”
    â€œIn there,” he points down the hall toward the sitting room.
    â€œThat’s fine.” She takes the used tissue and throws it out. “Tuck? Mind you should take your books back to bed. I know you feel better, but your nose is still runny, and you look flushed. All right, sweetheart?”
    He nods, his big watching eyes shining, and trots off to get his sack of baby books, left abandoned on the rug behind the chintz loveseat. The sitting room is dead cold, no fire, no light in the December gloom, no people, now even lacking the artificial warmth of Liz Moore’s
Wirkorgan
, which Tom had moved to his office on the promise of another Moore, a Christmas gift. Tucker grabs his sack to drag along behind him, across the braided rug, over the stone of the hearth where he stops, just at the foot of the massive fireplace. He looks around, then out the window: a red and black wool jacket bright against the thin snow, a muffled chop of the ax. Smiling a fierce little smile, Tuck sneaks over to the metal sconce of fireplace matches, and lifts one out to strike against the granite hearthstone, and again, and again before the match ignites with a hiss and flare.
    Dr. Davis, being on that side of the house, sees the smoke first. Nancy, still canning, doesn’t smell it, doesn’t know until a shriek so wild makes her drop a jar.
    â€œWhat –?” She glances up from broken glass to a mass of smoke rolling fast toward her from the hall.
    Without a sound she runs, just as Tom bangs into the kitchen behind her.
    â€œNancy!” he cries as he too, breasts into the smoke, choking on the acrid bitters of his own