Missing Sisters -SA Read Online Free PDF

it? Or is she in a hospital here somewhere?

    On one of her regular visits to the ear doctors, Alice had seen a Capital District bus marked for Albany parked across the street from the clinic. And—a miracle— there one was , exhaust puffing out the tail pipe, magic accordion door open, driver waiting, reading the Times Union . A bus to Albany was a very minor miracle; Alice realized this. But it did seem like a sign that she was doing the right thing. And when she didn’t have the correct change from the cash envelope and a young man carrying a guitar in a duffel bag made up the difference, Alice felt positively anointed.

    Albany was what, eight, ten miles away? Four? It was across the river, she knew that.
    Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers, who carried the Christ Child piggyback across the river, save me from drowning in case the bus plunges off the Dunn Memorial Bridge. Or whatever bridge we use. Amen.

    The smell of diesel oil in the bus was quite strong.

    Alice hoped she wasn’t misbehaving. She wasn’t always clear in her mind about it. She had to be good, so that Christ would ladle forgiveness out of His bottomless bucket o’ mercy.
    She was doing the job Sister Frank had given her, so that Sister Vincent de Paul would recover and come home. It only looked like she was running away.

    “Without Satan, that snake, we’d never have needed the love of Christ,” Sister Vincent de Paul was fond of saying. “So we should thank Satan kindly for tempting Adam and Eve. Because of their stupidity we got to get Jesus in our world.” Alice hadn’t quite been able to follow this, but cut her thoughts off early. God was hard to figure out; Jesus and Mary were much chummier and Alice preferred them. But God was the boss God, and Alice tried not to be disrespectful.

    From bad mistakes, from accidents and disasters, good could grow. This is what Alice wanted to believe.

    The young man—well, he was a boy—the one with the guitar, he was changing his seat.
    “Mind if I sit here?”

    Alice nodded yes, then shook her head no, then gestured: Sit.

    She had to grin a few minutes later. He didn’t realize she was a clumsy talker. He yakked so much all she had to do was nod or shrug. When he put his arm around her, however, she said as distinctly as she could, “Stop it, please.” She might be tall, but she sure wasn’t old enough for this kind of nonsense.

    “You just looked cold, no coat and all,” he said.

    She nodded—yes she was cold—and yes—she still meant what she said. Then she removed his hand with hers and said with inspiration (Holy Ghost sanctify me, Holy Ghost enlighten me): “Play your guitar instead.”

    “Play my cigar?” But he wasn’t being mean. He got it from the bag; its neck stuck out in the aisle. “What’ll I play, tootsie? Beatles?”

    Alice made a face. “Play My Fair Lady .” Wasn’t he a fair one himself, though, with those soft brown curls?

    He laughed again. “Okay, My Fair Lady , my fair lady. Which song?”

    “It don’t matter.” She thought some more. “Heavenly one.”

    After a while he figured it out. He even sang, too, a kind of nice voice in a cold city bus.
    The snow that people had tracked in was melting in rivulets down the grooved wooden floor of the bus. Below them, below the bridge, skaters circled on the gray marble slab of river. The sky had strange blotchy yellow-brown clouds in it, like butter streaked on wax paper.

    Alice joined in on the lines she could remember. The sleet came down, but with the noise of windshield wipers and music she couldn’t hear it. Other passengers, even the driver, began to sing. When they finished, they started all over. Alice let her voice out like a fishing line in a pool, a little at a time, letting it get louder, unreeling it. Nobody laughed the way Naomi and her friends had.

    All too soon the château on the top of State Street in Albany showed up, red pointy roofs almost pewter-colored under the