Born Weird Read Online Free PDF Page B

from Georgian Bay, having apparently veered off the road and over a cliff, Nicola went into her bedroom. She closed the door. She did not come out.
    The Weird siblings assumed that their mother was waiting for their father’s body to be found, just like they were. When the Maserati was towed out of the water, Besnard’s body had not come with it. It was thought that it had been swept away by the tide and that the same forces would soon push it back to shore. But two weeks later their father’s body had not been found and their mother had not come out of her room.
    The meals she placed in the hallway went untouched, and Angie began to suspect that her mother was leaving the bedroom at night and making her own food. Angie set her alarm for 3:30 a.m. She crept downstairs, to the kitchen. To keep herself awake she brewed a pot of coffee. This was the first time she’d ever tried to do this. Angie took one sip and dumped the rest into the sink; it was the last coffee she ever tasted.
    Angie sat at the kitchen table and waited. Without anything to keep her awake, she soon fell asleep. When she woke up her mother stood at the counter. Nicola wore a black pantsuit, heels and a small string of pearls. She was making a loaf of sandwiches. Angie watched her butter twelve slices of bread. She set down the knife and opened the refrigerator.The light from inside shone on her carefully styled hair. She took out a jar of pickles and strained to open it.
    “At least I know you’re eating,” Angie said. Her mother didn’t seem to hear her. She continued trying to open the pickle jar. “I said, it’s good to know that you’re eating!”
    Frustrated, Nicola set the unopened jar on the counter. Angie went over to the cutlery drawer. She took out a knife and tapped the lid of the pickle jar in a circle. Then she set the jar back on the counter and put the knife back in the drawer. As she returned to her seat at the table, Nicola made another attempt to open the jar.
    “Hey? Mom?”
    “Yes!” Nicola said as the lid popped open. She fished out four pickles, sliced them and put them on the buttered bread. She got a tomato from the refrigerator. Angie took it off the counter. She held it in her hand. Her mother went back to the refrigerator and took another tomato out of the crisper.
    “Please don’t do this,” Angie said. “Don’t do this to us.”
    Nicola sliced the tomato. She put her pieces of bread together, stacked all the sandwiches on a dinner plate and carried the stack towards the kitchen doorway. Angie got up and stood in front of her mother. Nicola stopped. The sandwiches wobbled. For the briefest moment Angie was sure that her mother recognized her and that everything was going to be okay. But then the look of recognition disappeared. It went away so quickly that Angie couldn’t tell whether she’d caught her mother off guard and seen throughher act, or if the look hadn’t really been there in the first place. Keeping the plate level Nicola bent forwards at the waist. She leaned down until she and Angie were eye to eye.
    “Are you staying here too? It’s such a beautiful hotel,” Nicola said.
    Not being recognized by her mother was unsettling, yet what troubled Angie even more was how much confidence and joy there was in Nicola’s voice. Emotions it had not conveyed for as long as Angie could remember.
    “What’s your name?” Nicola asked.
    “Please. Mom? Don’t?”
    “Well, whoever you are,” she said and she lifted her left hand, extended her index finger and dabbed Angie on the nose, “you’re as cute as a bug!”
    Angie looked at the floor. She watched her mother’s shoes as they stepped around her. She did not turn around as Nicola Weird left the room and climbed the stairs and stopped being her mom forever.

A NGIE WAS SURPRISED WHEN Lucy handed her a pillow and a sheet. “Wait,” she said. “I have to sleep on a couch and I have to make it up? This is no way to treat a guest.”
    “You’re