Dedication Read Online Free

reach under my slip to peel my wet yoga pants off and hang them on the hat rack beside the faded Venetian mask I made at art camp. I touch its glittered triangle nose and look down at the red sparkles on my fingertip, affected to see my presence still tucked among Dad’s collection of Red Sox caps. But beneath the rack, visible on the cream paint, is only the dark outline of where the hall mirror should hang. I look to the stairs, where more rectangular smudges mark the places of the seed catalog illustrations I helped Dad hang when we first moved in.
    My stomach sinking, I pass the door to the dining room, coming to an abrupt halt when I see Granny Kay’s walnut table gone, the oriental rug rolled along the wall, and the floor littered with boxes of bubble-wrapped pictures. I twist up the dimmer, letting the pewter chandelier cast a glare on the bare walls. Through the door I can see into the living room, its pine bookcases stripped clean of their prodigious shelf-sagging contents, its rug also rolled up, its furniture gone. I flick the switch off.
    I step back into the front hall, pausing at the boot bench, which is now laden with every piece of displaced bric-a-brac—dusty kachina dolls standing side by side with Brahmin elephants and the base slivers of every Christmas tree trunk we ever had, each one scrawled with the year of its service in Dad’s permanent marker.
    And it strikes me that this is what it will be like when they die. I’ll get a call, scramble onto a plane unexpectedly, dressed inappropriately, to process the artifacts of their interrupted existence. All of this, from the useful—can openers—to the vital—pill bottles—to the frivolous—ugly wooden fruit from Guatemala—will lose its context, most of it transformed into rubbish at the moment they stop living—and I suddenly want them home with a childlike urgency.
    Braced, I step into the den, but find it thankfully unchanged. Swapping my damp trench for the age-softened afghan, I nestle into the overstuffed green couch, retreating from the agglomeration. The clock chimes for seven o’clock. The refrigerator hums faintly from the kitchen. Unable to snap out of the morbid frenzy I’ve worked myself into, I reach for the phone to call Laura.
    “Ulo?”
    “Mick?” I ask, winding the cord around my finger, unsure which of her twins has answered. “Keith? Is that you?”
    “Ulo?” the three-year-old voice says again. “I’m Keith. Mick is frosting.”
    “This is your Godmother Kate—”
    “Fairy Godmother!”
    “Hi, Keith. Is your brother better?”
    “He barfed. It was Christmas color. But it didn’t smell like Christmas.”
    Smiling, I tuck the afghan around my bare feet. “I heard. Is Mommy there—”
    “Kate?” Laura takes the phone.
    I pull out my ponytail. “Word is you’re frosting.”
    “We’re making holiday blobs.” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial timbre. “You’re here?”
    “Tah-dah. I took the first flight.” I slide the black elastic onto my wrist. “Did you know they sold the house?” I rise up onto my knees.
    “They sold the house?”
    “Uh-huh. My parents sold the house,” I say slowly so I can hear it, too.
    “You’re kidding.” Her incredulity soothing as always. “I didn’t even know it was on the market. Where are they moving to?”
    “I have no idea! There’re boxes everywhere. It’s so creepy. So—”
    “Completely irrelevant at this moment. Did you really fly all the way here so we can discuss real estate and shirk the long-distance fees? Turn on your TV, my friend. It’s the second coming.”
    I reach for the remote, its batteries still held in place with masking tape. “What channel?”
    “Every channel. Start with E!.”
    I flip to a woman in a pink wool coat standing on our Main Street under a banner that proclaims WELCOME HOME JAKE!
    I taste bile. “You must be fucking kidding me.”
    “You didn’t see it?” she asks.
    “We didn’t come through town—the cab took