Early Spring 01 Broken Flower Read Online Free PDF Page B

forgetting was also my mother's fault. Mama put her fork down and fixed her eyes on her in preparation to do battle. My heart thumped so hard, it felt like it was going to pop through my ribs. Something terrible was about to happen.
Daddy caught the exchange of looks. "What's the difference anyway?" he asked. "The insurance company will take care of it."
"The difference, Christopher, is that in this family, we don't keep important things from each other.
"Especially," she added, her eyes moving toward me. "from me!"
I looked quickly at Mama, who shifted her eyes just as quickly away.
Grandmother Emma saw that. I knew she did. Her eyes were soaking in suspicion like little sponges as she glanced from Mama to me and back to Mama again.
And I was never as afraid of what would happen next in this house as I was at that moment.
    3
Too Early. Too Quickly
.
The moment I returned from school that day,
    my mother told me Dr. Dell'Acqua wanted to see me as soon as possible. That same afternoon in school I had a close call in the bathroom because Missy Littleton almost saw what my mother had given me. I didn't close the stall door fast enough. As it was, my girlfriends were curious about why I was so quiet all day and not interested in anything they said or did. I kept to myself as much as I could out of fear someone would finally notice the new things about me. I had never been as self-conscious about my body.
    "I made your appointment for tomorrow. I'll pick you up at school."'
One look at my face would tell her or anyone, for that matter, that I was petrified.
"Don't worry. No one will know why I'm coming for you. It doesn't mean you're sick and dying," she added quickly. "There are things we should do, however, to be sure everything is all right and will be all right."'
I said nothing. I hadn't been to Dr. Dell'Acqua very much aside from our shots and an occasional sore throat or earache. Dr. Rene Dell'Acqua was the same doctor Grandmother Emma had. In fact, Grandmother had convinced Mama we should use her as our doctor, because she was "more sensitive to female problems," whatever that meant. Dr. Dell'Acqua was a tall, slim, dark-haired woman with soft dark brown eyes and a smile that put me at ease quickly whenever I did go to see her for anything. Because of Mama's tone of voice and obvious concern. I was more nervous about going to see the doctor this time, even more nervous than when I knew I was going to get a shot.
"It's time for us to tell Daddy about this, too," Mama told me.
With the school year ending. Daddy was talking about taking us all up to the family cabin on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where we had a motorboat, too. It had been our week's summer vacation even before we had moved in with Grandmother Emma. She continually talked about selling the property since we rarely used it. My grandfather Blake had used it often because he was a fisherman and enjoyed bringing his business associates to the lake for what she said he called FFWWs, Freedom From Wives Weekends. From what I understood, Grandmother Emma didn't care. She wasn't fond of the cabin and rarely went up there. She told Ian and me it stank from cigar smoke.
"The stench is in the walls of the cabin and even leaving the windows open all winter won't get rid of it. Besides, how anyone can enjoy being at the mercy of mosquitoes and other bugs is a mystery I'll never solve."
Ian enjoyed going there for exactly that reason. He liked to explore nature and didn't get all that many opportunities for it at home. He, like Daddy, wasn't interested in fishing, except to capture a fish for a study. He'd rather examine the inlets and bushes, walking about with his magnifying glass and bringing specimens back for his microscope. He pressed them into a book and kept a library of creatures.
The cabin was a cozy three-bedroom, but it meant we would be more intimate and the chances of Ian and Daddy finally discovering what was happening to me