Y: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

tells her he has always found her beautiful.

    On Sundays, we walk as a family along Dallas Road, down the pebbled beaches, past
     the world’s tallest totem pole, all the way to Ogden Point. If it’s not too cold,
     we walk the length of the breakwater. The salty wind slaps against my face, and the
     smell of the sea stays on my skin for hours. Sometimes Moira picks me up and I put
     my little feet on the turquoise guardrail, spread my arms and let the wind blow me
     back against her.
    When my hair finally starts to grow in, it is as soft and white as corn silk. Moira
     dresses me in her old baby clothes, which are hand-sewn,expensive, and kept in a cedar chest. She takes Polaroid pictures of me in little
     velvet vests with soft white moons, corduroy overalls, and wide-striped sweaters.
     My hair glows in the sunlight; I am so well dressed.
    When she makes dinner, Moira takes me in her arms, and I press my body into the crook
     of her hip. It’s soft-lit in the kitchen. She likes the lights off. Moira bends and
     smells the steam and her face glows blue from the gas flame. I touch her cheeks, which
     are freckled and soft. I twirl her hair in my fingertips. She has such coarse hair;
     it feels rough in my hands. She puts her face to mine. “Ay-bee-cee-dee-eee-eff-gee.
     Now what?”
    “Aick,” I say and she rewards me with a nibble of soft white potato.

    On my second birthday, my parents buy me a rocking horse, a marble night-light shaped
     like a lighthouse, and the complete set of Beatrix Potter books. While Moira is at
     work, Julian holds me in one hand and plays the piano with the other. I squirm and
     fidget. His hands are bony and covered in hair. His fingers hold me too tight.
    Sometimes Moira has to work nights, and on these nights Julian insists that I learn
     how to read. We start with the books Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Moon, and even though I love petting the fuzzy white bunny and saying “Goodnight, mush”
     over and over, he grows tired of it and of me. When I see his face loom over mine,
     the look in his eyes as he points to and sounds out each word, I begin to cry. His
     teeth are little and coffee stained. The words look like symbols, like hieroglyphics.
     When he points at the word the, I stare at him and burst into tears. He forces me into my bed, our evening ruined
     by my stupidity.
    “I can’t,” he says, when Moira gets home that night, “I can’t have her crying all
     the time.”
    Moira ties the floral apron around her waist and warms a pot of soup. “Clint said
     I can have the long weekend off.” She scratches the back of her calf with her big
     toe, and Julian winces—he hates it when she does that. And he hates it when she mentions
     Clint.
    She is called into work at night more and more often. When she gets home, I hear her
     pleading with Julian to calm down while I stareat the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted to the ceiling above my little white bed. Julian
     has tucked me in so tight, I can barely breathe or move my arms.
    Is she blind? Is she dumb? I want to tell her how frightened I am of Julian—of being
     alone with Julian—but I don’t yet have the words. I stare into her face. I cry and
     wail and beat my fists into her soft belly. “What is it, little one?” she says to
     me. “Why are you so angry?”

    One day Julian announces that he is going away for a week, and Moira takes me to Willows
     Beach. She pushes me on a swing for a few minutes, then stops, stands on her tiptoes,
     and waves to a man coming toward us. It’s her boss, Clint. He’s a tall man in a burgundy
     dress shirt, skinny tie, and black dress pants. He has a sharp face and a long curved
     neck, like a heron. He’s carrying a little girl about my age—two and a half—and we
     stare at each other from behind the legs of our parents while they talk. She is a
     confident child, dark-haired and dark-eyed like her father, and I am afraid of her.
     Moira and Clint walk down the beach together