House Arrest Read Online Free PDF Page B

the tractor instead of driving it, smoking a cigarette and staring at her. Later, she was setting the table when he came in the house. She was trying to remember which side the fork went on. She couldn’t tell left from right, but she had a birthmark on her right hand, just where the thumb and pointer finger met, and she always tried to remember by that. “B” for birthmark. “B” for butter knife. Knife on the birthmark side. Problem was she had to look at her hands and think about it and that took time. That’s what she was doing when her father came in and watched her. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Ma shooed him right out of the kitchen. “George,” she grumbled, “you take that filthy cigarette outside.”
    Being cut off from their relatives was the other reason Pippa knew that something was wrong with her father. Stanley told her that they had two uncles and a passel of cousins living about ten miles south. Years before, after a big argument, the uncles sold off a piece of the family farm and gave her father the money to buy his own place. They never saw their kin, not even at Christmas or Easter. At holidays it was just the four of them; the cold feeling around the dinner table seeped into the walls of the parlor. Ma loved her and Stanley, but Ma was insubstantial, like someone who could walk through walls. Her hugs were thin and the safe feeling evaporated right after she let go.
    When Pippa left Georgia, the night she followed her father and saw what he did, she had never heard of Springfield, Massachusetts, but it seemed as good a destination as any. Alone in the Springfield bus station with no more money, no plan, no place to go, she hid in the end toilet stall in the ladies’ room. When she ran out of sobs and came out to the sink, a tall woman in a sky-blue wool coat handed her a paper towel to dry her face, and introduced herself as Mrs. Carney. She offered a hot meal and a place to sleep. Pippa might be a hick but she wasn’t stupid. She recognized the roughness in the woman’s face, but what choice did she have? She stayed a few nights, before running away again. The streets were frightening, but safer than in Mrs. Carney’s house.
    Francie found her hanging with some kids behind a restaurant. At first Pippa ignored her, but there was a shining in Francie’s face, radiant and homey at the same time. Four nights in a row, Francie stopped by on her way to work, even though Pippa told her to get lost. Francie talked about Isis, how she was the mother of everyone, wise and forgiving. She described Tian as Isis’ great great many-greats grandson and the head of the family. Tian helped people find the comfort of believing in ancient ideas like the solstice and the sun’s return, following traditions as old as civilization. Tian was especially on the lookout for lost girls, raw and ready to belong to something good, because no one had helped his sister when she needed it. Pippa came to see Francie as an angel, dressed all in white. Later she found out that wearing white clothes for ceremonies was part of being pure for Isis. Francie was the only one who wore white all the time, even to work, even though no one could see her on the hospital switchboard.
    Pippa got up to clear the dishes. No matter what else anyone might say about Francie—about her being bossy, or trying to get Tian back, or anything—she was one persuasive lady. After four nights of urging, Pippa agreed. She was so weary trying to take care of herself. Francie’s family sounded way better than being a hooker or a runaway. She followed Francie into the family’s feeble old van that smelled of dried thyme and spearmint. A few months later, Pippa dressed in white too and danced at her first solstice celebration in a remote section of Forest Park. That night, four years ago next month, Pippa joined the Family of Isis.
    Francie’s face was paler than usual when she returned to the kitchen.
    “What’s wrong?”