All Over Creation Read Online Free PDF Page B

give anyone the benefit of the doubt, and he was right to do so.
    Cass draped her arms around his neck again and held the stack of letters in front of his nose. “Look,” she said, pointing to a postmark. “Where’s Pahoa?”

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    Two peas in a pod. You remember how that went?
    Lloyd would come in for lunch. He’d be sitting at the kitchen table, and you’d dance up behind him and throw your arms around his neck, still hot from the sun, and there would be dirt in the pores under his collar and the sour smell of fertilizer on his fingertips as he reached up to cup your chin and hold you still—remember what his cheek felt like, pressed against yours? Then Momoko, sitting across, would compare the two of you, her large husband and her eager little daughter. She’d peer, long and slow—the same appraising look she gave to a pair of melons, figuring how much longer until they’d be ripe enough to pick—and your heart would be racing. You were always so anxious. How did you know? That growing up meant you were becoming less of him. That this was something, inevitably, that any daddy would dread. Finally Momoko would press her lips together. “Hmm,” she would grunt. “Two peas in a pod.” Only she’d pronounce it more like “Tsu pi-su ina pod-do,” and then she’d give a little nod that made it for sure. Did he teach her that phrase? She seemed to enjoy saying it, enjoy her role in your ceremony, although with that act of abnegation, she put herself outside the two of you. What did that cost her? At least a small twinge of belonging, because if your heart was any measure, your face must have lit up like the sun, to hear her pronouncement. Did that hurt her, too? It was triumph to you. Flesh of her flesh, turning from her—you would have banished her entirely, had you not needed the power of her affirmation. Oh, yeah, your allegiances were firmly with Daddy.
    And Daddy would chuckle. Pat your cheek. He was always as shy with his love as you were ferocious with yours, but even if its expression was tentative, the fact of his love was absolute. Then. So what the fuck happened?
    It wasn’t your fault! you wanted to cry. It was just life, filtering into your prattle at the supper table, that so offended him, and how were you to know? You’d always shared what you’d learned in school, playing teacher even then, telling him all about the Pilgrims, for example, or how the telegraph was invented, or the names for the parts of a flower. “Pistil, stamen, stigma . . .” He’d frown with concentration, repeating the names after you, slowly, as though he’d never heard them before. “And what does a stamen do?” he’d prompt, pretending to be confused. And you would proudly teach, “A stamen does this and such,” and he would nod and smile at you and say, “My, my, my!” like he just couldn’t believe how one little daughter—and his, at that—could be so bright. His love for you was absolute, all right. Until you changed the subject.
    It wasn’t your fault that the sexual reproduction of flowering plants failed to hold your interest. You were becoming an adolescent, after all. When your conversation veered off like a car out of control, toward shades of frosted lipstick and the boys who smoked Pall Malls in the weeds behind the maintenance shed at school, Lloyd’s face froze. He grew surly at the sight of your love beads, recoiled at any mention of rock and roll. The first time you used the word “groovy,” he choked on his gravy.
    â€œYou are not leaving the house dressed like that,” he said, catching you sneaking out the door in your worn jeans with all the holes and patches. “I won’t have you parading all over town dressed like a beggar.” You turned around to face him. “Your navel is showing,” he added, eyeing it with disgust.
    If he