Algoma Read Online Free PDF Page A

spun her around in the air, narrowly missing hitting her head on the doily-covered swing lamp.
    While mid-air, she decided to tell him about the notes. He was her husband; he should know. When he set her down, she turned to him. “I have something to tell you.”
    “I was thinking we could fry them up with butter like my mom used to do,” Gaetan said. He tossed the package of steaks onto the counter. “Do we still have that cast iron pan? The big one?”
    “Uh, sure,” Algoma said. “I mean, yes.” She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or if he was trying to avoid any conversation that might bring down his mood. She looked at her husband. For the first time in a year, she felt comforted by his presence. Maybe she would wait until after dinner to tell him about the notes, about the crack opening around their remaining son. A few hours wouldn’t matter.
    Algoma set the table for two while Gaetan pan-fried the T-bones with a heaping mix of onions and mushrooms. Ferd was watching a movie with Lake at the Fox, a monthly ritual his aunt had instituted after Leo’s accident. After the movie, they always went back to her house, ate plain cheese pizza, and fell asleep in front of the television like teenagers.
    “You smell like the bar,” Algoma said.
    “You’re right. Watch this,” Gaetan said, turning down the stove. “I’ll take a shower. I’ll be quick. Five minutes.”
    A half hour later, they sat down to a meal of steaks, frozen French fries, canned peas, and sautéed onions and mushrooms. Algoma looked expectantly at Gaetan who was shoveling forkfuls of over-salted peas into his mouth. He was smiling. The words did not come to her; they remained lodged in her throat like a dry piece of bread.
    As soon as she was done eating what she could force down, she scraped the rest of her food onto Gaetan’s plate and stood up to put her dishes in the sink. She couldn’t tell him. It was only fair to Ferd that he had one parent who was keeping it together, even if only by a little. She resolved to keep each word she’d fished out of tub and drain to herself. The house was speaking to her one sopping, stuttering word at a time.
    Gaetan ate quickly and in silence.
    “Good?” she asked.
    He nodded furiously, his fork and knife hacking apart the meat, drops of blood and grease spilling onto the table.
    “Good,” she said, and sat down at the table.
    As he ate, she drifted into worry about Ferd. Last winter, he’d been the only one to see Leo slip through the ice. The emergency workers who’d dredged the river never found Leo’s body, nor had the fishermen who lined the shore the following spring. Even the bear Ferd had reported seeing never turned up by hook or oar. Most people in town believed he’d made the animal up as a coping mechanism. An excuse. Something to take the blame away from his brother. While his parents openly grieved the loss, it was obvious Ferd did not believe his brother was gone.
    Lost, said one of the notes. Come back when you’re ready, read another.
    “You make good dinner,” Gaetan said to Algoma.
    “You bought it,” she replied.
    They sat together in a moment of comfortable silence.
    Gaetan popped the last piece of meat into his mouth and smiled. “Let’s watch a movie after this, okay?”
    Algoma nodded and stood up. As she reached over to pick up his dishes, Gaetan, feeling the water from Ferd’s latest note bleed through the back pocket of his jeans, inched his chair away from her. It was the third note he’d found in the shower drain that month. He was surprised the pipes in the house still worked at this point.
    “Everything will be fine,” he said, as she walked away.
    Algoma looked over her shoulder. “What did you say?”
    “Nothing,” he said. He couldn’t say it twice because he didn’t believe it.
    Ferd woke up from a dead sleep, jarred awake from a terrible dream. Feeling the hard ground beneath him, he panicked. He couldn’t remember where he was. As his eyes