Unkiss Me Read Online Free Page A

creature. You are falling in love. He is skinny and shriveled and bald, and you can’t keep your hands off of him. The carpenter is afraid to hold him. The way this new father contorts his face, stiffens and stops breathing when his baby is placed in his arms annoys you. It is not endearing. Your dead husband got it immediately, after the birth of your first-born. At least that’s how you remember it. You grab the baby back. Send the carpenter off to fetch a fresh onesie. One day, he will be very eloquent in the description of his initial terror, his fear of breaking his son, and then you will weep with him, nod your head sympathetically, but right now, you just wish he’d get a fucking clue.
    21.
    Half Tortoise Pose
    Slowly, painfully, turtle-like, the carpenter settles into fatherhood. It is with such glacial speed, you don’t even notice it. One early morning, after the baby cries off and on until 4 A.M, you are too exhausted to lift him once again from his crib. Somehow, the crying stops, and when you open your eyes, there it is: father and son. The baby’s head is draped over the carpenter’s big, sexy shoulder in sleepy contentment. You have waited so long for this. In the entire world, there is not a more beautiful sight.
    22.
    Camel Pose
    Life continues. The shingled cottage is too small for five people. There is no real yard, and, as you recall, the preschool years require ample running room. So, once again, you move. Pack, carry, unpack, carry, pack, carry, unpack, carry. You should have your baby surgically sewn to you. God, you’re so fat! How did that happen? The baby didn’t even weigh seven pounds! Your tits alone weigh seven pounds apiece.
    “Remember your ten eight-ounce glasses of water a day,” says the nursing consultant. “It’s very important in this heat.”
    You buy a bicyclist’s camel-pack so that, in addition to everything else, a bladder of water is now attached to your back with a plastic tube that snakes to your mouth. The August heat, the new house, the new baby, your two almost-teenage kids, it’s enough to break your back.
    23.
    Rabbit Pose
    But you are happy with your little brood. You always wanted a bunch of children. Back in your grandmother’s attic, where you spent most of your childhood summers, you constructed paper doll families. Always there was a baby, and always there was at least one teenager. The husband was always named, for reasons you can’t remember, English. Maybe because you hoped the husband you would one day marry would speak that language. Stun! you tell yourself, as your childhood lexicon dictates, the carpenter has forgotten English. He forgets to tell you that he’s getting high every single day while working on scaffolding, while using power tools, while driving around in his beater truck. When he’s high, there’s no stopping him: his dreaminess, his appetite, his treasure hunting.
    You decide to put your foot down. No more piles of junk in your driveway, no more debris on your lawn. The carpenter is hopelessly in love with the potential of all things not quite beautiful, and the evidence of this begins, once again, to spring like weeds from the corners of your perfect little garden. During the only snowstorm of the winter, the carpenter rents a U-Haul to bring home an enormous, fractured, stained glass window. Come spring, the baby crawls up to this work-in-progress when you turn your back for two seconds, and blood dribbles from his index finger like cherry juice. This is the first of several emergency room trips for this child. You look at the carpenter, his disheveled hair, his torn pants, his more-and-more-common look of “Huh?” Then, you point at the monstrosity in your driveway: the broken window that injured your son and has caused your new neighbors to call the city, prompting another one of those pesky clean-up-or-else letters, and you tell him, “I can’t do this anymore.”
    24.
    Head to Knee Pose with Stretching Pose
    Between the