April Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

she had visited her family. Mama had had little to smile about during the past few weeks, and just talking to her brother on the phone was enough to restore some of the familiar and cherished gleam in her eyes and blush in her cheeks. She began immediately to plan a wonderful dinner for the day Uncle Palaver arrived.
    In my heart of hearts. I hoped and prayed that Uncle Palaver's visit would soften Daddy and perhaps restore him to how he had been before all this meanness and avoidance had begun. Surely, he wouldn't be unpleasant while Uncle Palaver was here. No matter what was bothering him, he was never one to wear his heart on his sleeve, as Mama would say. He hated watching all those television shows on which people would reveal their most intimate and private information.
    "The next thing we'll see is a show with a camera and microphones in Catholic confessional booths," he said. "The priest will turn to the audience and get a consensus about what punishment or acts of contrition the sinner should perform."
    If anything bothered Daddy, he would never show it in front of other people, and on those rare occasions when we had private family problems, he would die before revealing the slightest hint of it at a dinner party Mama prepared or any other sort of social gathering.
    "We're giving up so much of ourselves when we give up our privacy issues," he told us all at dinner once. "People don't even know what self-respect is anymore. They should feel shame and keep their problems to themselves. Being ashamed about something isn't all that terrible. It has some purpose. It works as a deterrent. Nowadays, kids aren't ashamed about poor grades or misbehavior. Their parents aren't ashamed about being caught in adultery, getting divorced, going bankrupt. They just visit one of these talk shows and spill their guts in front of millions of psychological and emotional voyeurs. I'd rather be caught dead," he muttered.
    Mama agreed but had to admit she watched some of those shows. Brenda was more like Daddy and thought he was one-hundred-percent correct.
    "People lay their troubles on you all the time in school," she said. "The locker-room gossip about parents, boyfriends, and brothers and sisters sickens me."
    "Hey, there's a new show." Daddy piped up, laughing. 'The Locker Room."
Brenda laughed. too.
Those dinners and days were beginning to feel like distant dreams.
In any case, we all felt confident that Daddy would behave more like the old Daddy we knew and loved when Uncle Palaver was visiting. Brenda said it would be like a prison camp being spruced up for an inspection by some international human rights agency.
"Maybe he'll smile again, but it will be like a mask. I'm afraid," she predicted.
As it turned out. I wished he had worn any sort of smile, mask or not. When he heard Uncle Palaver was coming, he muttered. "That's all we need now," and stormed off to his home office, closing the door as he had done so many nights recently. He would remain in there until bedtime. Because Brenda and I were in our rooms doing homework or Brenda was at an away game. Mama ended up sitting and watching television for hours alone. A number of times. I pretended to have completed my homework when I hadn't, just so I could keep her company. It broke my heart knowing she was sitting by herself, trying to knit or do some needlepoint project, the light of the television flashing over her. I failed a math exam and a history exam because I didn't study.
Actually, my grades, though not anything to rave about before, took a real nosedive during these days. I couldn't help being distracted in class, missing notes, not listening to the teachers. Something Daddy had said or done the night before usually haunted me all the following day. My best friend in all the world. Jamie Stanley, thought I had gown bored with her because nothing she said got me very excited or interested. Finally, one day when she asked me a question and I didn't respond, she slapped her