Barnacle Love Read Online Free PDF

cotton sheets and the peppered sweetness of cinnamon. There is intrigue in her difference—something fragile that needs his tending. Manuel wants to hold her, touch her.
    Pepsi meets her father at the front door. He loses his balance and tries to grab on to the wall. It’s not enough.She’s there to direct the running fall toward his bedroom, where he flops onto his bed. Manuel tries to get up and help but then falls back against his pillow. She struggles with Andrew’s coat and kneads him like dough, gaining momentum to flip him over onto his back. Manuel can smell him from where he is: beer, stale piss, the spice of tobacco in damp wool, the flakes of a fish pie always evident on his stubbly chin and cardigan. Pepsi looks back again to see if Manuel is awake. He moves up to rest on his forearm. He wants to help her. She waves him off and hauls her father’s boots from his feet and then threadbare socks before hoisting his legs up onto the mattress and pulling the covers under his chin. Manuel has made it to Andrew’s room, leaning against the door frame.
    “Thank the Lord you won’t be runnin’ away like your mother.” Andrew cups her face with his hand and brushes her lips with his sausage-like thumb. Unnoticed by him, she spits his fingers away.
    “You’re my … my sweet ugly girl. And a wooden leg to boot.”
    He smiles when he whispers these words, breathes out his judgment. His body now relaxes, his weight molding itself to the mattress as he sinks into a drunken sleep, mouth wide open.
    She comes out of his room. “Go to sleep, Manuel. I’ll take care of things.”
    Manuel moves back to the cot, urged by her hand on the small of his back. She turns on the tap. The gush of water splatters against the cement basin. She finds the empty Javex bottle hidden in the cabinet under the sinkand grabs a wooden spatula. She moves past Manuel into her father’s room. She kneels before his sleeping lump, pulls back the covers and undoes his zipper. She looks away and with the spatula fishes for his penis, and expertly aims it into the neck of the jug. A good couple of taps on the hollow plastic jug wakes him just enough to hear the running water. It’s all that’s needed—the hot, cloudy pee trickles, then gurgles into the bottle.
    Cara Mãe
,
    Every day I get stronger. Andrew and his daughter, Pepsi, are taking good care of me. They ask for nothing. I want to help, to show them my gratitude. There are so many stories to tell … of the big ship, its men, how I was swallowed by the sea, of St. John’s and its streets and people … I hope you have received my gifts that I mailed to you while in St. John’s. I pray that you got my first letter before the black news that must have greeted you from the commander of the fleet.
    You were visited fifteen years ago with news of our dear father’s death; the idea that you and all my brothers and sisters would hear those same words fall from the mouth of an unknown man pains me. But I am alive,
Mãe
, and this must give you some comfort.
    Please don’t see this decision I have made as a rejection of the promise you saw in me. I will work hard to show you that it still burns inside me, brighter than ever.
    Every time I breathe in the brackish mist, it reminds me of home. The new land is far, and even though it smells just like home, I find that now I can breathe. I don’t know why I want you to know this other than a month has passed and the November winds here are building, getting colder and forceful, and I have yet to hear a word from you.
    Please don’t be angry with me. You have my brothers and sisters to look after. Love them as I do.
    Your son,
    Manuel
    “Plucked outta the water, my boy.”
    The days are punctuated by Andrew’s repeated boast. He puffs himself up like he’s caught a prize fish and they’re going to take his picture for the local newspaper. Manuel cannot help but smile with gratitude at his outbursts.
    Manuel is feeling strong enough to help