Bitter Waters Read Online Free PDF

his mother that Max insisted on the heavier vehicle, though, she would worry.
    â€œYou should have taken the Cherokee or the Buick.” Mom Jo picked up his carry-on. “You don’t realize how expensive Hummers are to repair. You did ask before you took it?”
    â€œMax said it was okay.”
    â€œI don’t know what that man thinks of sometimes,” she said, meaning Max. “Letting you drive off with a hundred-thousand-dollar vehicle. I hope you thanked him for letting you take it.”
    â€œMom, it’s a company car; insurance will cover any damage, and Max values me more than the Hummer.” He slammed shut the hatch, pressed the lock button on the key fob, and picked up his other bag. “The Cherokee still had all of Max’s luggage in it, and Max is trading in the Buick tomorrow morning.”
    She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t snap at you.” She started for the kitchen door, and he followed. “Kittanning has been desperately unhappy since you left and he has stopped sleeping through the night. Cally started kindergarten and has gotten very clingy. It’s been bitter cold and dry—between the two we lost all our late harvest crops. Oh, good news, Lara got a surprise part-time job at Pitt, but her Neon is dying, and we’ve got a depressing lack of money for everything. We shouldn’t have gone to Kitty Hawk; even with staying at Aunt Kat’s place, we spent too much money.”
    â€œMom got a job?” He had heard about Kittanning, Cally, and the weather when he called home last week and talked with Mom Lara. The early onslaught of fall spelled a possibly hard winter for his moms with higher heating bills and less homegrown food stockpiled. The job was news—as was the Neon dying, but that was to be expected, considering its age.
    â€œShe’s going to be teaching one class a week at Pitt starting Tuesday,” Mom Jo said. “But her first paycheck won’t be until October. We’re going to have fun juggling things until then.”
    â€œStill, that’s great!”
    â€œI know.” She sighed tiredly. “But the timing sucks; we’re having a fund-raiser here on Saturday, the twenty-fifth, to mesh with the Octoberfest down in Evans City.”
    All of Mom Jo’s wolf dogs had been rescued from humane shelters over the years. There was a small thriving group of breeders selling the mix-breed dogs, although almost nonehad access to purebred wolves. Large, frequently unpredictable, often destructive, rarely trainable, and very adept at escaping, the animals made poor pets. New owners were often unable or unwilling to deal with the difficulties of raising wolf dogs. Many humane societies and animal control agencies, however, had policies against placing any problem wolf dog up for adoption. Mom Jo took in animals from western Pennsylvania that couldn’t be placed, saving them from being destroyed.
    The big dogs needed room and lots of food. On the farm, they had the room. Dog food companies sometimes donated food as a tax write-off, requiring the shelter to pay only for the shipping. Even so, his moms were always short of money. Fund-raising was a common family activity, but it was Mom Lara who did the lion’s share of the work.
    â€œI’ll take Kittanning in to work with me tomorrow.” Ukiah set his bag down in the mudroom, and pulled out his wallet. Prior to leaving for Oregon, he had pulled out two hundred in cash, but Max had covered most of his expenses. He left himself a ten, and handed the rest of the bills to his mom. “Here, take this.”
    She eyed the money with dismay. “Honey, you pay rent already, and you’re paying for Lara’s health insurance.”
    â€œBut there’s Kittanning now.” Ukiah pushed the money into her hands. “Between the formula and diapers, he’s not cheap.”
    Things had to be