Donutheart Read Online Free PDF Page A

for a Thompson Treat and a pat on the head.
    Bernie jumped out of the van and joined the fracas. I preferred to remain in my place, though when Mr. Kervick appeared, wiping his oil-blackened hands on a grimy rag, I did crack my window.
    Sometimes I try to imagine what my own father looks like. We have never met him. He just…well…provided the ingredients. I don’t know how to talk about this to people who don’t already know. Some people think a child who is the product of a mom and a sperm donor is just plain weird. If only they knew—there are millions of us in schools across America!
    It’s like my mother wanted to make a cake and she went to the store to get some flour. While I might have chosen stone-ground, organic, whole-wheat pastry flour from a family-run cooperative in Wisconsin, she probably took whatever was closest to hand, even if it meant the on-sale store brand dangerously near its sell-by date.
    “I wanted a healthy guy” is all she’ll tell me.
    But my mother wanted a baby, not a cake. This required sperm, not flour. And since I bear very little resemblance to my mother in either looks or personality, she may have grabbed the container that advertised: “sensitive-intelligent-asymmetrical-immaculate male” in her rush to get the whole business over with. As she is repeatedly reminding me, what she wanted was: “normal-dog-loving-athletic sports fan.” But I can hardly be held responsible for my own genes, now can I?
    Whatever I had in mind for my father had nothing in common with the man who was at this very moment standing across from my mother. He wore a denim work jacket over a stained muscle shirt. His lips seemed permanently clenched around an unfiltered cigarette; his balding head had been over-exposed to the sun for many a year. In short, the man was a walking bundle of risk factors for a variety of cancers, including skin, throat, lung, and stomach lining.
    “Whatcha got today?” he asked, expertly keeping the cigarette in place while he talked. My mother was still kneeling, rewarding the dogs with her presence and scratching them behind the ears. She looked up at him.
    “Just wanted to let you know, Sarah’s first competition is in three weeks.”
    “That so?”
    “There will be an exhibition the week before, sort of like a dress rehearsal. I know how much she wants you to come.”
    “Might have to work,” he said, concentrating now on the oil between his fingers and digging in with the rag. In addition to fixing up cars and roofing during the summer, Sarah’s father did temp work at the door-panel factory over in Marshfield.
    My mother set her box of Thompson Treats on the hood of the van and waited. She wanted an answer. She wasn’t going to let Mr. Kervick off the hook. Without treats in the immediate vicinity of their noses, the dogs whined and started jumping up on my mother. Bernie tried to distract them with an empty fist held just above their heads, but that made them jump higher and paw the air.
    “Get on!” Mr. Kervick growled, swiping at them with his rag.
    Was it the tone of his voice or the threat of a swat that drove them to run, ears back, tails tucked between their legs, into the shed where Mr. Kervick kept his tools?
    My mother folded her arms. So much for positive rewards.
    “Back in the car, Bern.” After Bernie had slammed the door, she continued: “Well, I’ll have her Thursday after school, getting fitted for her skating costume…and a sandwich after, if it’s all right by you.”
    Mr. Kervick had a hard time setting his eyes anywhere, and—I’d observed—he had a particularly hard time looking my mother in the eye.
    But now he dropped his cigarette in the dirt and stepped in closer, lowering his voice. I couldn’t make out all he said, only the snatches: “You done a lot for Sarah, her not having a ma and all…” and “…take up work with my brother over in Muskegon…”
    When he finished, he seemed to be waiting for her to say