Bone Dance Read Online Free PDF Page B

while and take a rest. Let’s make a little roomon the table there. I noticed a special on oranges and chicken legs this week.”
    He would push aside all her mother’s accounting texts and notebooks that she bent so feverishly over every night, long after Alex had gone to bed. Then he’d sit down at the little kitchen table. If Alex was sitting in one of the chairs, he’d reach out and pull it, with her on it, skidding up alongside him.
    â€œAlexandra,” he’d say, “what do you know for sure today?”
    â€œNothing.” She’d giggle, because that was what she was supposed to say.
    â€œNothing! Well, we’d better fix that.”
    It was Grandpa who was there if either of them got sick. He was there for outings to the museum, to movies, to plays, to the sun-dappled hiking trails at La Barrière Park. And those camping trips to Spirit Lake, a lake so deep no one had ever found the bottom. He was there for science projects. He was there for every birthday. He knew all her favorite songs. And from the time she was a very little girl, he never made her feel bad for wanting the things she couldn’t have.
    Alex reached out and covered her mother’s hand with her own. “Don’t cry.… Mom? You’re crying over somebody who isn’t worth it.”
    Mom leaned back, pulled a Kleenex out of her cardigan sweater, blew her nose. “It’s just that…” She looked away. Then looking straight at Alex again, fresh tears flowing down her face, she said, “I have so many things to be sorry for.”
    â€œYou?” said Alex, sad and bewildered. “What have
you
got to be sorry for?”
    One time, she and Grandpa were sitting together on Auntie Francine’s scratchy brown sofa. It was Sunday, and just the day after she’d gotten a letter from her dad, the one that referred to the roses.
    The two sisters, her mother and Auntie Francine, whispered together as they prepared dinner in the kitchen.
    â€œPaul,” Francine had said to Grandpa, “just relax. Let us fix you some tea.”
    In the kitchen, Auntie Francine, her eyes as cagey as a wolf’s, listened to the rise and fall of her sister’s voice. Alex could see them, positioned as she was in the middle of the sofa. She was twelve and a half years old.
    â€œJeanette,” Francine finally interrupted, “why do you keep going over all these old hurts and hopes and memories? You’re like a broken record. Just let go of him, for heaven’s sake.”
    She raised her eyes briefly, saw Alex looking at them, then lowered her voice so that Alex could only pick out the odd word above the Disney show about bears that Grandpa was watching with rapt and respectful attention.
    But she knew, without even hearing the conversation, that her mother’s depressed mood had something to do with the letter. The sadness was always there, pervading their house each time another letter arrived. She felt guilty for wanting those letters when hermother got nothing. She felt even more guilty for wanting to know her father. To know who he really was.
    â€œWhy…?” she began, and then stopped.
    â€œWhy what, little bug?” Grandpa asked, pulling his eyes away from the bears.
    â€œWhy,” she said again, in a very low voice, “aren’t there any photographs of him… of my dad?”
    Grandpa slipped his arm around her. “She tore them up. Every one of them.”
    â€œWhy?” she ventured.
    â€œSomeday she’ll tell you. When she’s ready.”
    He rocked her quietly for a while as she thought about this. A few minutes later he said, “We all make our mistakes. And we live with them. We all do the best we can. Things work out. Usually. You’re going to be just fine, Alex. And your mom’s going to be fine, too. Stop worrying so much. Who’s my girl?”
    â€œI am,” she said, smiling up at him.
    â€œAnd