Matters of Faith Read Online Free PDF Page B

were younger. Even Meghan’s piano lessons and practice had been muted, muffled somehow by the three stories of the house, the humidity of the Gulf of Mexico, and her hesitancy on the keys.
    But tonight there were three of them up there and it sounded like twelve to me. I knew mothers who loved a raucous house full of children, but I’d never gotten the hang of relaxing into the din, never been the placid earth mother with multiple, wide-eyed children gathered beneath her skirts.
    We did not tiptoe around; there was no ban on noise. Our family had just always had a certain amount of reserve, a reluctance to startle. But at the sound of Meghan’s bright peal of laughter, slipping down the stairway and into the kitchen like a jazz riff, I smiled, and when Cal entered the kitchen I turned it on him.
    â€œHey,” he said, jerking his head up, indicating the noise from upstairs. “Guess they’re getting along. She seems nice. Marshall got some of his old man’s genes after all. We know how to pick ’em.”
    I laughed. It had been a long time since we’d flirted. “Did you ever consider that maybe you weren’t the one doing the picking?” I asked, coy but out of practice. He grabbed me around the waist and bent me over backward, going after my neck. I played along and protested for a minute, allowing him the barest graze of a kiss before I pushed him away.
    â€œSo, really,” I said, lifting the lid again, stirring where there was no need, looking to add something there was no absence of. “What do you think?”
    Cal sniffed at the sauce, wrinkling his nose. “I think making sauce out of tofu is really weird, and I don’t care how much V8 you put in it, I’ll still know it started out looking like a slimy brick of candle wax.”
    â€œCome on,” I said. “What do you think of her, of Ada?”
    He shrugged. “I’m glad the kid has a girlfriend.”
    â€œShe has a tattoo.” That got a raised eyebrow.
    â€œWhere?” he asked.
    I pointed to the top of the back of my jeans.
    â€œReally? What’s it of?”
    â€œSome black tribal thing. And what about the eyebrow piercing?”
    â€œI thought she was religious? A tribal tattoo seems a little at odds with that, doesn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, knocking the edge of the spoon against the rim of the pot and turning to face him. “I don’t know of any religions specifically against tattoos. Judaism says something about defacing your body, scraping your skin or something. But she’s definitely not Jewish. It sounds like a commune, one of those big, happy family things. It’s certainly not something I’m against; I just don’t know what their beliefs are. What if they’re polygamists or something?”
    â€œYou’ve been watching too much cable. And since when did that matter to you, anyway?” he asked, and we were back to our usual poking at each other.
    â€œI guess since I considered the fact that he’s old enough to get married,” I said. “And even if he doesn’t marry her, and even if it isn’t anytime soon, he will probably marry someone, someday.”
    â€œThis is just occurring to you?”
    â€œYes,” I said, angry at the defensiveness I felt well up within me. “I mean, no, of course I’ve thought about him getting married before, I just never gave much thought to who he’d marry.”
    â€œOr how many wives he might have?” he pressed.
    â€œLook, I just—I think it changes when they get older.” I turned back to the sauce, but I could feel him staring at my back. I let the silence hold until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Without turning around, I said, “What, Cal?”
    â€œI think it’s very strange that you’ve fought with me for years over this, like he’s had some perfectly acceptable hobby, and suddenly,