Dropped Threads 2 Read Online Free PDF

view by heavy, brown brocade drapes that shut the den off from the dining room. Opening these drapes required her permission.
    I feel the presence of my siblings as we reach the dining room and pop my eyes open in delight. All significantly older than I am, my two brothers and my sister are my playmates, my caregivers, and I love them fiercely. They stand huddled together near the kitchen door, looking not at me but at my mother. They do not make a sound. Behind them I see the open drapes and know for certain this is not about Christmas.
    I must have seen their terror. I must have sensed her anger. But I had already chosen my role in this house, to remain hopeful long after it was prudent. My desire for a gift would not be quelled. Perhaps it was what saved us.
    Once we are in sight of the other children, her voice rings high and loud above my head. This is her never-ending-flurry-of-words, all racing out of her mouth, bumping into one another, falling together and never making any sense—at least not to me. But the others seem to understand. They turn in unison and enter the kitchen. From behind, she shoves each of them toward the stove.
    If I had not been struggling against the mist of sleep, I might have seen her eyes, wide with panic and veiled with the glaze of prescription drugs. If I had been a little older, I might have smelled a day’s alcohol on her skin and heard the madness of her demand.
    She is asking her children for proof of their loyalty, their unshakeable love. She gathers us around the stove, my brothers on her left, my sister on the right and me still in her arms. She turns the large front element on high, the electricity crackling to life and slowly changing the colour of the black coil.
    “If you love me,” she says, “you will move your hand toward this element until I say stop.”
    Her voice booms and bounces in the quiet kitchen. My siblings squirm. I remain mesmerized by the brilliant spiral below me.
    “You first,” she says, nudging my sister with her elbow.
    The shaking hand of my eleven-year-old sister begins a descent from its highest height toward the glowing orange element.
    I am annoyed. I know about going first—about opening the first present, being served the first plate, getting the first piece of cake. As the youngest, and very much the baby, going first is my place, my territory in a crowded household. Besides, I have been looking for a surprise and this sun-like object must be it.
    With the agility and speed of a three-year-old, I wiggle and lunge, diving toward the burning element.
    My sister’s hands catch mine. She pushes me back, toward our mother. My oldest brother moves quickly, stepping between us and the stove, clicking off this evening’s source of pain.
    I giggle and laugh. I think we have invented a new game to play together, a type of dance, perhaps. My sister takes me from my mother’s trembling embrace. The speed words have stopped. Tears slide down her face, and she mumbles apologies without pause. My brothers cautiously walk her up the stairs, their footsteps creaking toward her bedroom. I sit with my sister in the kitchen. Held within her tight embrace, I listen to the wild rhythms of her heart.

An Exercise
                    in Fertility
    Lisa Majeau Gordon

“You inject the orange like this,” says the nurse, pinching the skin on the orange with one hand and expertly plunging a syringe into it with the other. “Let’s try a few more times.”
    We are at the clinic, Andrew and I. We’re learning how to inject me with fertility drugs. It’s autumn, and outside the window I see orange and yellow trees.
    “These drugs must be administered subcutaneously. Taken orally, your stomach acids will break them down,” the nurse said after introducing herself a half-hour ago. “I’ll leave you to watch a short video and then we’ll practice on oranges.”
    I cannot watch the video. In it, a smiling woman has just pulled up her shirt and