An Affair to Dismember Read Online Free PDF Page A

clear of his family, and I couldn’t remember ever setting foot in his house.
    “You came and swam here. Your mom brought you,”he said, as if he could read my mind. “Then your grandma got upset and took you back home.”
    The story sounded familiar. “You have a pool slide, right?” I asked. A scene came back to me in a wave of memory. In my mind’s eye, I saw the pool and Grandma’s burly arm pulling me away, her face angry and concerned.
    “That’s right,” he said. “You wanna come in? We’re all sitting around, having a drink.”
    “Oh, no thanks. I have to get back,” I said, turning.
    “Not even for a second? My mom would get a kick out of seeing you. Besides, don’t you wanna see the scene of the crime?” he asked.
    “Scene of the crime?”
    “Yeah. It happened in the kitchen, you know.” I must have looked a little horrified because he added, “Oh, I guess you didn’t know that. My dad died in the kitchen. Come on in. I’ll show you.”
    “Um …”
    “My mom sure will be happy you said, you know, that you’re sorry about my dad.”
    He stubbed out his cigarette and held his hand out to me. I didn’t feel I could refuse, and I walked across the street to him and shook hands.
    “My name’s Rob, if you don’t remember,” he said.
    “I’m Gladie.”
    “Yeah. Peter reminded me.”
    “Who’s Peter?”
    “My brother. He’s the smart one in the family. You’ll meet him. Come on in.”
    The doorknob hung broken at an angle. “Dad wasn’t much for fixing things,” Rob explained. “The door’s been broken as long as I can remember. Easier that way. Don’t need keys.” He tapped the door, and it swung open for me. I stepped inside.
    “Come on in and take a seat,” he said, his voice tinged with uncertainty.
    The house was crammed with furniture. How to pick a seat? And how to get to it? I tiptoed around a sofa wedged in the entranceway. Rob waved me into the living room. More furniture there. I counted at least four couches, plus a bunch of chairs and ottomans. There was a sea of knickknacks wherever I looked.
    In one of the corners was a curio cabinet filled with little porcelain dolls. On the mantel was a collection of ceramic elephants. The rest of the room was stuffed with shelves and cabinets crammed with figurines. A creepy feeling went up my spine, and I shivered.
    Rob looked around for a place to sit, but the furniture was too overwhelming, and it was doubtful there was a navigable path through it all. I was wondering if I was going to have to climb over the furniture to take a seat, when Rob looked at me and shrugged. He’d given up.
    “Everybody is in the kitchen,” he said, steering me away from the living room. The house was big, but not as big as my grandmother’s. Hers was one of the first real homes in Cannes, built by a lucky gold miner who spared no expense. But Grandma was right about the Ternses’ house. It was sizable and would bring a pretty penny.
    I spied on the rooms as we walked the long way to the back of the house, where I assumed the kitchen was located. Clutter, clutter everywhere, but not a drop of dust. Either Rob’s mother, Betty, was an obsessive-compulsive cleaner or she had a dynamite cleaning lady.
    “It’s just a couple hundred dollars, Mom. You act like I’m asking for the world.”
    I heard the kitchen before I saw it. Rather, I heard the voices. The first was a woman’s, with the remnants of a teenage Southern California whine. The second was awoman who was fed up with everything, especially those close to her.
    “Grow up, Christy. Jesus, you just got out of jail. Don’t you think you should try to get a job? At the very least, you should kiss Mom’s ass for getting you out of the slammer and not kicking you out of the house.”
    It was awkward, to put it mildly, and I was sure that Rob would stop and turn me around, but he acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Before I could fake some sort of ailment and bolt out of