More Than Allies Read Online Free PDF Page A

rent a little house for the summer. It’s hot here already, but there’s water, many places to swim, good hamburgers. Jerry’s wife is nice and wants to meet you. They have a baby a little older than Stevie. (They guessed which musician she was named for, which shows you they knew me pretty good right away!)
    I thought you could come when school is out, since you won’t be subbing. If you don’t want to come, I want Jay for the summer. He can stay with me at the shop, or at Jerry’s some of the time. I want to find an old car and start showing him how to work on engines. I promise I won’t let him on a motorcycle, I know how you feel about that .
    If you aren’t going to come, we need to come to an agreement about child support and stuff, and whether you want a divorce, oh Maggie, not that! But I don’t feel right sending you what I decide, I don’t know what I ought to be doing, but I can tell you the only reason I haven’t sent more is because I was saving up for security deposits for renting a house and turning on the utilities, and I overhauled the engine on the truck .
    Well, school will be out pretty soon and there’s no real reason for you not to come. I promise you you won’t be nearly as lonesome as you think you will. Jerry’s wife (Lisa) is dying for you to come, and I’ve already got to know some other people, too. You’d meet people because of the kids, especially when they’re in school. What else can I say? I didn’t say I love you, I miss you all the time, I’ve been true to you but I don’t like being alone at all. If you want I will come get you, or we can use some of what I’ve saved and you can fly, except that you couldn’t bring very much stuff .
    Maybe you could talk to Mom about it. Not your friends. I don’t mean don’t talk to them, God don’t get mad like I’ve insulted them or something. I just mean they’re not the best ones to understand us. They’re not really like us. Mom wants us together. I bet she prays for it, if I know her. There’s a Mexican works in the shop, he says everything that happens, his wife goes to church and lights candles. If I was Catholic, that’s what I’d do. I’d light all the candles in the place, and every one, I’d say, please let Maggie and the kids come. Please let me say the right things instead of the wrong things this time .
    Love, Mo

Mrs. Tobler’s English class had just finished reading Death of a Salesman . She had left a list of discussion questions. Maggie looked over the afternoon’s plans—there would be three classes in a row—and saw that the next class had the same assignment, for the same play, and that the last class was going to watch part of the movie.
    She checked her watch, and turned to write the questions on the board. She knew by the time she had written out the first couple of lines that she would not attempt a discussion. She didn’t want to maneuver her way through the students’ apathy and insolence, second-guessing who could be called on and who to avoid. She would tell the students they could work in pairs to write out answers in preparation for a discussion the next day—with their teacher. “Keep it down,” she would say sternly, “or you will have to work singly, in silence.” That was about the extent of her ability to threaten. That, and taking names.
    Mrs. Tobler wasn’t stupid; why did she leave a sub to launch talk about a boring play with a class of students who would know Maggie was a lightweight? And there were the things Mrs. Tobler had no way to know: that Maggie had no father and did not know how to talk about fathers, that her children’s father was in Texas selling motorcycles, that she had been up all night with a sick baby .
    â€œCheers.”
    She looked up to see Rachel at the door. There were five minutes left of lunch hour. She waved