Celestial Navigation Read Online Free PDF

never did a thing more about it, and as a result look what has happened: ants in the upstairs rooms where people have carried their sandwiches, roaches in the kitchen, strangers dirtying pans and littering counters and stuffing the cupboards with their various foods. The student before Howard, what was his name? He kept a cake tin in the icebox with a label Scotch-taped to it: CAUTION BACTERIOLOGICAL SPECIMEN DO NOT DISTURB . All a deception, of course; there was only cake inside. But nevertheless it was a disturbing thing to come across as I was searching for an egg or a bit of lettuce, and more than once it’s put me off my feed.
    Thinking of boarders reminded me; I set my milk down and said, “There’s a lot we have to talk about, Jeremy.”
    He looked startled.
    “There’s the question of where you will live now.”
    “Live? Oh, why—won’t I just go on living here?”
    “In this great house? Nonsense. I suppose you’ll have to move in with us.”
    “But I’d rather, I don’t think—”
    Whenever Jeremy is upset he has a hesitation in his speech, not a stutter exactly but a jagged sound, as if the words were being broken off from some other, stronger current of words deep inside. It was plain he was upset now, and I couldn’t help but feel insulted. Did he think I wanted
him
, for heaven’s sake? Turning our ordered life topsy-turvy, trailing his little snippets of paper across our carpet? We would have to move to a larger apartment, and give up the one we’d had for nineteen years and grown so used to. But you can’t alwayspick and choose. “We’ll put the house in the hands of an agent,” I said. “Someone with a talent for selling. Heaven knows he’ll need it.”
    “Oh, but I just, I believe I’ll just stay here, Amanda,” Jeremy said.
    “Jeremy, we are not going to argue about this,” I said. Then I rose and went out to the kitchen to get a dab of sugar for my milk. Giving myself a chance to grow calm again, although that turned out to be impossible with Howard standing at the sink eating directly from an ice cream carton. I ignored him. I returned through the swinging door to the dining room and what did I see? Laura and Jeremy reaching simultaneously toward a coconut layer cake, their hands suspended and their faces sheepish when they saw I had caught them. I am always being put in the role of disciplinarian even when I am not at school. It isn’t fair. I never ask to be. “Go on then, eat,” I told them, and I resettled myself in my chair and stirred my milk, pretending not to care. Inside, though, I felt that I had reached the limit. The headache had descended after all, spreading through my temples and down the back of my neck. I get terrible headaches. No one who hasn’t had them can imagine. “Right now, Jeremy,” I said, “you are going through a difficult time and I know that you’re not thinking clearly. We’ll put off discussing your plans till later. But I’ll say this much: I expect you to come with us to the funeral parlor tonight. It’s the
least
you can do. You would surely not allow your sister and me to walk alone in the dark.”
    “Oh, well, Amanda, I was thinking we might stay home tonight,” Laura said.
    Which was certainly not what I had expected. I had thought I would have to drag her away from the casket. “How would that look to Mother’s visitors?” I asked her.
    “There may not
be
any visitors, and even if there are I’m sure they’ll understand.”
    “You may stay home then,” I told her. “Jeremy and I will go alone.”
    Jeremy said, “Well, but—”
    “You can’t refuse to visit your own mother, Jeremy.”
    “I don’t think I want to go,” Jeremy said.
    And Laura said, “Why don’t we
all
stay home?” With her face bright and hopeful—protecting Jeremy. Jeremy sat slumped in his chair, mashing cake crumbs with his fork. His lips were pressed outward. Sometimes I wonder if Jeremy possesses some strength I have never suspected,