The Angry Woman Suite Read Online Free

was terrible, like getting the mumps. And my mother wanted me to swear never to tell about Stephen Eric being my real father. She wanted me to pretend to the world that Daddy Francis was my real father. Which was fine enough: it took nothing away from me, living a fairytale to put a smile on my whisper-soft mother’s beautiful face. In fact, I felt benevolent granting Mother her wish, and so I sealed Stephen Eric inside a place in my heart, in a new and hastily structured place reserved for safekeeping rare, unused things, things too important to toss away.
    “You never know,” Papa always said, “the things you’ll find a use for. Never, ever throw anything away, mein Liebes . Never, ever, ever.”
    Another thing Papa always said was that I wasn’t picky enough about people, the way I went right up to strangers and sat myself down in their laps. He didn’t say this critical-like, because Papa was never critical, just matter-of-fact. Although at the start of things, Francis had been merely an afterthought, another face, another uncle, in Mother and Aunt Rose’s crowd, he’d let me sit on his lap whenever he’d visited, and he’d made Mother laugh and show her dimples and dip her head so that her dark hair rippled, and so of course I’d accepted Francis, no questions asked.
    It was a whirlwind thing. One minute Francis was one of my fly-by-night uncles, and the next he had Mother in Reno, marrying her. He moved into our house and made Papa turn quiet, and Bean and I, who’d shared a room with Mother, sleep on the living room couch instead, wedged together like sardines. He was staying . A month later, my new daddy got orders. The Air Force said we had to live in Biloxi, Mississippi. I didn’t understand that my grandparents and Aunt Rose weren’t coming with me to Biloxi. I didn’t understand even when Papa helped Francis load the car with all our things and none of his or Grandma’s or Aunt Rose’s. I didn’t understand until Papa hugged me tight and his voice turned shaky.
    “ Süsses Mädchen , you will be brave. A year is not a long time. And you will have grand adventure in Mississippi. You will remember everything and tell me of your grand adventure, nein ?” I gave a little cry, suddenly understanding.
    Papa said quickly, “Listen, Elyse, nothing is black and white in this world, even though we try very hard to make it so. Verstehst du? ”
    “No,” I moaned.
    Papa tried again. “Life is like a ship, Elyse. Sometimes it blows forward, sometimes back. But just when you think your life is sinking, someone rows into the harbor and tosses oranges onto your deck.”
    I stopped crying. “Oranges?”
    “When I was a boy coming to America, nearly everyone on our ship got sick. We weren’t allowed to dock. It looked bad for us. But when the other German settlers got word of our predicament, they rowed out, bringing bags of oranges with them. They tossed the oranges onto our deck.”
    “The oranges made you better?”
    “Viel besser. And most of us got well. We made it to shore. And you will make it too, Elyse. Now, chin up. There’s a brave girl.”
    I hiccoughed, trying not to cry. Grandma said she wanted to hold me, so Papa passed me to her and I put my cheek against one of Grandma’s arms and watched my tears roll down the notched white fat of it.
    “Well, that’s it,” I heard Daddy say for what had to be the billionth time. He rechecked the ropes that held our tarp-covered suitcases and boxes to the top of the car, also for the billionth time, then held out his arms. Grandma handed me over. My immediate future didn’t include choice. “I’ll do right by her,” Daddy promised. “And Bean, too.”
    I looked at Papa, beseeching him, but his narrowed eyes were on Daddy, not me, trying to see through Daddy’s “dense and complicated.” I could tell Daddy saw Papa’s disapproving look, because I turned my head just in time to see Daddy’s lips go thin. Thinking Daddy might cry because