Bone Dance Read Online Free PDF

memory of him. Of a shadowy man coming to her crib one night when she was crying. Of him picking her up and singing to her. But in this memory she’s about three years old, so it was probably Grandpa. Or maybe she just dreamed it. Or maybe she just wanted it to be real.
    Alex felt her hands begin to tremble. “Where do you get this fantasy about him loving me?” She stopped right there. The word
fantasy,
she could plainly see, flipped over her mother’s heart.
    Mom said, her eyes huge with sadness, “Will you let me read
this
letter to you?”
    The envelope, addressed to Miss Jeanette Sinclair, was from T. LaFrenière, Box 56, Lacs des Placottes, Manitoba. Inside was the letter and two other pieces of legal-looking paper. Mom carefully opened the letter again, placing it on the table, smoothing the crinkle lines, then lifted it and read aloud:
    â€œDear Miss Sinclair, This is a difficult letter to write. It concerns a man named Earl McKay, who, I understand, was your husband and the father of your daughter, Alexandra Marie.
    â€œI regret to inform you that Earl passed away last week. He died of complications due to pneumonia. And he’d made sure, earlier, that I had your address. He did not want to trouble you with his funeral and wanted simply to be cremated. He also asked if I would straighten his affairs and effects after his death, and this is why I am writing. He left a will.”
    â€œA will?”
    â€œJust wait,” said Mom, waving her hand. “Let me get through this.” She took a breath, swallowed hard, and, hand over her heart, began again.
    â€œMy involvement with him started when he came looking to buy a few acres of my land. At that time, I was not ready to sell, but he stayed for a few days, helping out around the place. Then he left, and I thought that was the end of it.
    â€œBut he returned about a year later. And as he was willing to negotiate a very generous offer, I took him up on it. I needed the money, you see.
    â€œHe didn’t appear like a man of any means at all. In actual fact, Miss Sinclair, he was something of a lone wolf. But perhaps you already knew this, and other things about him. I discovered that he was also a hard worker. So I guess that’s how he’d conducted his life all along.
    â€œHe lived for a few months in the house trailer that he’d borrowed from me and pulled onto the land. But by winter he’d had a well dug and hadn’t he gone and completed building a fully winterized four-room cabin overlooking the lake there!
    â€œIt was a shame that he never really got to enjoy it. But then life plays funny tricks sometimes, doesn’t it. Just when you think you’re away, you find out you’re not.
    â€œAnyway, the upshot of this is that his last will and testament leaves this cabin and the property to his daughter, Alexandra Marie.”
    â€œMy father left me land? And a cabin by a lake?”
    â€œThere’s more,” said her mom. “He evidently left you some money.”
    â€œMoney?”
    â€œHe left you almost seventeen thousand dollars.”
    â€œSeventeen
thousand?”
    â€œEvidently. Yes. To cover yearly property taxes. Other expenses. It takes a lot of money to run a place.” She took another breath, held it, let it go like a thin prayer. “It’s all in his will. Here, read for yourself.”
    The words blurred. It was all very legal. She looked at the paper that gave over this piece of her father’s life. She ran her fingers over the document. She felt as if she were holding air.
    Alex thought of all the times when she was younger, when Mom had gone back to school and was so strapped for cash. It was Grandpa who was there to help out. He bought their groceries and paid their rent. He’d shuffle through the door, practically every Saturday afternoon, grocery bags bouncing against his lame leg, and say, “Now, Jeanette, stop that studying for a