Freedom's Child Read Online Free PDF

her ex-daughter-in-law. “I only ask that you do things to Nessa that no mother would want to hear about untilshe begs to die. And I don’t need to tell you to be sure none of it gets back to this family, do I?” She sighs. “And as for your niece and your nephew, just…break the news slowly to them. Show them love. Tell them Grandmother has waited patiently for twenty years and looks forward to hugging them.” She takes a cigarette from Luke and puffs away. Her teeth are burned.
    “She goes by Freedom Oliver these days,” says Matthew.
    “Freedom?” Lynn scoffs. “Fucking clever.”
    “Let’s leave in the morning, then.” Luke smiles at the thought of bloodshed.
    “Fuck that.” Lynn kicks the bottom of the refrigerator from the motor scooter. “I’m not waiting any longer.” The steam seems to rise from her, liable to ignite the Aqua Net if she gets too angry. She brushes black cat hair from her sleeves, composes herself with a wheezing from the throat, and puts her cigarette out on the kitchen counter, no ashtray or anything. “My boys, my boys…” From her sleeve, she pulls out two fifty-dollar bags of cocaine and cuts five lines with her driver’s license in front of them, a driver’s license long expired since she hasn’t left the house in more than three years. The boys’ spines become a little more erect. When she’s done, she licks the edge of the card before turning a twenty-dollar bill into a straw. Peter can’t help but wonder how a habitual coke addict could be such a morbid size. “You don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?” She inhales a line through her left nostril before handing the twenty-dollar bill to Matthew. Her jaw sways back and forth, her pinkies twitch with the mechanical taste.
    Matthew stares straight ahead before he snorts the next line. “No, you never have to wait for us, Mother.” The others nod, agreeing with anything to get a turn at the coke. They watch as her nose starts to bleed, as it usually does, down her face and landing on the remaining orange cupcake, the white drizzle of frosting now spotted with crimson. But Lynn doesn’t mind her warm blood falling down on her dessert, and she stuffs it in her gob anyway. She stareseach one of her sons in the eyes. “Let John drive.” Lynn throws a set of keys on the table. “The plates are fake and the E-ZPass is stolen, so tolls for the bridges and turnpikes are free. You guys better head off to avoid rush hour.”
    With their hearts racing with drugs, anticipation, and obedience, they leave.
    Lynn watches Matthew, Luke, and John take off from the window.
This is payback for Mark, you stupid bitch
, she says to her reflection. She is a queen, releasing her wolves into the wild, on the hunt. As the car leaves the driveway, she sees the next-door neighbor. An old man from Puerto Rico, he paces in circles in an old and ragged green dress with black polka dots. His daughter’s mentioned before that he was showing signs of dementia.
Is anyone normal anymore?
    She licks the blood from her lips, hears the creak of Peter’s wheelchair turning toward her. He stammers, as if his vocal cords are trying to disconnect from his body.
    “Yu, yu, you’re…a…f-f-fucking ba-ba-bitch,” Peter says.
    Lynn uses the back of her hand to wipe the blood across her face, up her cheeks like war paint. She leers and says, “And here I was thinking you my-my-my-might want to eat ta-ta-ta-today…”



TODAY
    My name is Freedom and I hate this woman’s looks. Yeah, it’s an antipsychotic, just give it here so I can go. Walkers Pharmacy, the Botox bitch, I call her. Too much collagen in the lips. Maybe she’s not giving me a dirty look after all. That might just be her face.
    Seeing a psychiatrist is not my idea. Whippersnappers make me do it. Every week for the past eighteen years. That’s 936 hours. What good has it done? I grab my prescription and leave.
    —
    My name is Freedom
and I’ll be happy the day I