Before My Life Began Read Online Free PDF

counter, but he didn’t put them back into his satchel. I was afraid to look directly into his face because I knew he might look at me in a way that would make me want to help him find the words he could use to make her stop being angry with him. But if he left her for good and never came back, would she be happy then?
    â€œAnd listen, Sol—I’ll try not to nag you about money no more either, so you can see that it’s okay by me if you go. Sure. Only if you go, Sol, you don’t ever have to come back, because do you know why?”
    I thought he might give her his old line about how when the war ended in Europe it would start in Brooklyn, but he didn’t. He just stood there, his silence making the look I’d seen a thousand times before begin to spread over her face—her eyes narrowing, the left corner of her mouth curling upwards, her neck going stiff—and I went rigid too, so that I could be ready for anything she might say. I wanted to get out of the room—to grab my schoolbooks and coat and galoshes and to slam the door behind me and leave them to scratch at each other with their words—but I knew that if I moved and tried to get away they’d only switch their attention to me.
    â€œAnd you say you love me,” my mother said. “Don’t make me laugh, mister. If you really loved me you wouldn’t talk to me the way you do.”
    â€œNot in front of the boy, all right, Evie? Please.”
    â€œNot in front of the boy. Sure. But if you want to rant and rave in front of him and I say not—if I get down on my knees for you to stop, like I been doing—that’s all right, huh?”
    â€œLook. If I’m there tonight, I’m only liable to say the wrong thing and take away from your good time. The truth is I don’t trust myself around Abe.”
    â€œListen, mister, if you think a pip-squeak like you can take away my good time, then you got another think coming. I’ll tell you a secret,” she added, moving toward him. “You don’t make me happy and you don’t make me unhappy. You don’t got the power in you.”
    â€œEvie, stop already. The boy.”
    â€œHe ain’t hearing nothing he ain’t heard before and if he don’t like it he can pack up and get out too. You think I need you two? What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself? Tell me that. Come on. Tell me.”
    My father slumped into a chair. The ashes on his cigarette were getting long and I was frightened they’d fall on his hand and burn him. I tried to make their faces go away by remembering war movies I’d been to— Guadalcanal Diary and Back to Bataan and Destination Tokyo— and I imagined going to them with Abe so he could tell me which parts were true and which parts were made up.
    â€œWhatever you want, Evie,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
    My mother laughed at him then and when she did I felt that she was laughing at me too.
    â€œSure. Now you’ll do what I ask, when it suits you, right? When you don’t want to be embarrassed in front of your precious son. You ain’t nothing, Sol. Did you know that? You’re less than nothing, if you want the truth. You ain’t—”
    â€œStop it!” I cried out. “Stop it already!”
    My mother turned to me.
    â€œWell, well,” she said, mocking me with her eyes. “So look who’s butting in now? What’s the matter, bubula —you’re afraid your father can’t fight his own battles?”
    I stood and screamed at her with all my might to stop—to just stop it already, that I had said to stop it—and while I went on shouting the words I looked for something to grab on to, but the only thing I could see besides the radio was my bowl of cereal. There was still some Ralston in it, in a grainy brown crescent along the outer rim—so I lifted the bowl into the air with both hands and