Every Single Second Read Online Free PDF Page A

Nonni dozing in the chair by the window, Dad’s First Communion photo in her lap. The table beside her was a Sea of Dad, Nonni’s only grandchild. Here he was in his altar boy outfit, here in his scarlet Confirmation robe. Now he was graduating high school, first in his class.
    Then, a gap.
    The next time you saw him, he looked different. Notso much older, but more worn. You could see he’d been through something, and it had stamped him for life.
    In this photo he was getting married, to a tall, willowy girl in a dress too big for her. Mom, who considered clothes a waste of money, even bought her wedding dress secondhand.
    Dad had no memory of his parents. They’d drowned when he was still a baby. A lake undertow had swept his mother away from shore, and his father, who couldn’t swim, desperately tried to save her. All Dad could remember was life with Nonni and PopPop, which Nella took as a warning: Do not trust your memory.
    Now she cracked the front window, and music drifted in. Conservatory students rented the house across the street, and they practiced all hours of the day and night. An old woman who was a clone of Nonni used to own that house, but when she died it turned into a rental. This was the neighborhood trend—the oldsters dying off, students moving in. Nonni hadn’t liked the old woman, but she really hated the students. She hunkered by this window for hours each day, watching the dangerous Invaders across the street. More than once, seeing nonwhite kids, she punched 911 and croaked, Come catch the Gypsy thieves!
    A Cross to Bear.
    Nella sank into one of Nonni’s numerous itchy chairs.On the table sat a cup of watery tea. Nonni reused tea bags. She saved foil and plastic bags. She got everything at discount, even her beloved candy, so she ate jelly beans in December, and chocolate rabbits in July.
    The music swelled like a bud about to bloom, like the spring day had turned into a song, and as if in answer Nella’s legs began to kink and crimp. Please don’t make me grow any taller , she prayed. If this kept up, one morning she’d wake up and her head would brush the sky. Her shadow would cause an eclipse. . . .
    “Why you come?”
    Nella opened her eyes. “Good to see you too, Nonni.”
    “What you want?”
    To go. Immediately. “I came to make sure you ate lunch.”
    Nonni hesitated. Lately, she was confused when she first woke up. “I ate!” she said at last.
    “What did you have?”
    Okay, this was cruel. Nonni could forget things from a few minutes, let alone hours, ago. Her eyes narrowed.
    “No fish!” She pressed her index and middle fingers together and shook them at Nella. “My cousin Al, he choke to death on a bone.”
    “Nonni, you love fish.”
    “Is wrong!”
    For Nonni, Nella’s wrongness was only a matter ofdegree. She was wrong, wronger, or wrongest. Nonni especially hated Nella asking so many questions. Girls ask too many questions, she said, God no answer their prayers.
    Like God wanted girls to be dumb?
    Across the street the flower-music burst into full bloom, and Nonni hummed along under her breath. She loved listening, Nella could tell, though she’d never admit it. Just then, a boy raced up on a bike. An extremely cute white boy, with enough hair for two or three heads. Sam Ferraro might look like that, when he was in college. He took the front steps two at a time.
    “Where Angela?”
    It was eons since Angela last came along to visit, but Nonni always asked. Angela was her ideal girl. Pretty. Quiet. Knew her place.
    Nella jumped up and headed for the kitchen.
    She found some soup in the fridge. It was Mom’s minestrone, special made, low salt, for Nonni. Left to herself, she’d live on candy. She had it stashed all over the house. Once Nella had found some on the back porch, on the shelf with Nonni’s arsenal of bug and weed killers. I’m not sure how much longer this can go on, Mom said. What is that supposed to mean? Dad replied.
    Dad was the only human