Fragile Beasts Read Online Free PDF Page B

you.”
    I don’t think that would’ve been true. I think I would’ve kept hugging her all my life, but even if I didn’t want to, it would’ve been nice for me to have been able to make the decision.
    She didn’t want to make small talk. She didn’t want to know about school or anything. All she wanted to do was smoke, and she had to go outside to do it so I followed her.
    She had lost some weight and she was skinny to begin with. Her hair was blonder and puffier than before, and she had traded in her pink frosty lipstick for something orange and alarming. I told her she looked good. She smiled again and smoothed her short black skirt over her hips and said it’s too hot to eat in Arizona.
    We stood outside the funeral home for a little while. It’s the most impressive building in town, which isn’t saying much because most of the buildings are boarded up. Dad said when he was a kid—back before Lorelei, J&P Mine #5, closed—downtown was a happening place with stores and a restaurant and even a movie theater and a bank with brass handles on the doors and marble floors. Now the only places still open are a couple of bars, an old white church with stained-glass windows badly in need of a wash, a Kwiki-Mart, and this big funeral home.
    I guess it’s a crummy-looking town on the surface, but I always try to look deeper. Everything is sturdy and patient, soundly and sensibly built of wood and brick but decorated here and there with little touches of art like the bald eagle carved into the stone above the abandoned bank’s doors and the gingerbread trim hanging in pieces from the eaves of an old dress shop like torn lace. All the place needs to make it nice again is a good cleaning and a purpose.
    People started filing in past Mom and me. They all stopped to talk to me. Men shook my hand. Women burst into tears and hugged me. Kids from school who knew me muttered “sorry” and made some sort of brief physical contact whether it was punching my shoulder or brushing a hand against myarm or giving me a quick embrace. Kids from school who didn’t know me, but were there for the spectacle and would spend tomorrow missing all their classes while they sat in the guidance office sobbing with the grief counselor, avoided me. Klint’s teammates were somber and respectful in their dark sports banquet suits and all of them told me what a great guy my dad was and how they were going to miss him, even Brent Richmond, who was probably wishing Dad could’ve got killed during the upcoming season so Klint’s batting would’ve suffered and he could be top man. Then came Coach Hill, who was probably thinking how relieved he was Dad didn’t get killed during the upcoming season so Klint’s batting wouldn’t suffer. Klint’s teammates shook me up the most. I’d never seen any of them in a group when they weren’t in uniform, wisecracking, spitting tobacco, and calling me faggot and shit-for-brains.
    Nobody talked to Mom.
    I know it was awkward for her, but she had to have known it was going to be like this. It was Dad’s funeral after all. These were Dad’s friends. They all knew what she’d done to him and even though people like Aunt Jen said he deserved it, hardly anybody thought she went about it the right way.
    It had come as a complete surprise to me. I think the only person more surprised was Dad. I knew my parents’ marriage wasn’t perfect, but at least it had been consistent. Dad drank a lot but not more than most guys. He held down a job. He never hit Mom. When he wasn’t fighting with her, he was all over her. He brought her flowers for no reason and told her she made his life worth living. I’ve never understood what happened to make it so bad all of a sudden that she couldn’t stay anymore or was it that this other guy offered her something so good she couldn’t stay anymore?
    But why no discussion? No warning? And even if she wanted to leave Dad, why did she leave me and Klint? What did we do that was