My Mother Got Married Read Online Free PDF Page A

weakly.
    Mom stopped rummaging through the backpack and sighed.
    “I wish you wouldn’t keep acting like this.”
    “Like what? I’m not acting like anything,” I argued.
    She took me by the shoulders. “You’re acting like you don’t believe me. I’ve told you at least a hundred times that nothing is ever going to come between you and me, and I mean it. Not Ben, not Lydia, not Thomas … not nothin’ or nobody, no how, no way.”
    She laughed and she reached over and tousled my hair. “Got that?”
    I couldn’t help but smile a little. “Yeah … I got that.”
    We hugged. It was sort of nice.
    T HERE WERE only about twenty people at the wedding. My mother wore a suit. I didn’t know women were allowed to wear suits to weddings, but I guess it’s legal.
    The ceremony only took fifteen minutes. Mom and Ben repeated the usual junk and the minister told Ben to kiss the bride. Then my mother puckered up right there in public and everybody started clapping. Everybody but me. I only clap when I like something.
    Afterward, there was a reception at a nearby restaurant. They had a band and everything. Thomas asked me to dance.
    “Shh!” I said, checking to make sure no one had heard. “Boys don’t dance with boys, Thomas.”
    Thomas frowned. “We’re not boys anymore, Charrulls. We’re brothers ,” he declared. Then he circled his fork over my plate like an airplane and stabbed my last bite of wedding cake. The one with all the icing.
    I shoved my chair away from the table and stood up. I’d get another piece of cake. Only this time I’d sit in the men’s room and eat it by myself.
    Suddenly I felt someone grab my arm. I turned around. It was Aunt Harriet. The one who’s married to Uncle Bunkie. The Aunt Harriet who weighs two hundred pounds.
    “Come on, kiddo. Polka with your old aunt.”
    My eyes opened wide in fear. No, God, please , I thought. Please don’t make me do this. Please make Aunt Harriet disappear. Zap her or something. But God must have left town right after the wedding. Because the next thing I knew, the two of us were running all over the dance floor. That’s what the polka is—running all around the room while some guy named Fritz plays the accordion. We didn’t stop until Aunt Harriet started getting sweaty.
    After the reception, my mom and Ben drove to New England for a weekend honeymoon. Thomas begged to go with them, but my mother said that taking children on your honeymoon was something only the Brady Bunch would do.
    I stayed at Dad’s. I didn’t see Mom and Ben again until Monday morning, when my father dropped me off at the house before school. As I headed down the hall to the kitchen I could hear the two of them eating breakfast.
    When I walked in, Ben was wearing a plaid robe and slippers. He was sitting in my dad’s chair.
    As soon as he saw me he put down his coffee cup. “Charlie,” he said, smiling warmly. I’m not sure if I smiled back. I don’t think so.
    My mother ran to greet me with a hug. I think I was supposed to say “Welcome home,” but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Ben.
    “Miss me?” Mom asked, squeezing me tightly. Meanwhile, Ben reached back to the counter and grabbed a paper bag. “We brought you something,” he added eagerly.
    I took the bag and looked inside. It was a paperweight shaped like Plymouth Rock.
    “It’s a paperweight shaped like Plymouth Rock,” he said.
    I stared at it a minute, turning it over and over in my hands. “Oh,” I muttered.
    S CHOOL WAS a waste that day. I couldn’t concentrate at all. During science Mrs. Berkie strolled over to my desk and pretended to knock on my head. “Anyone home?” she said jokingly.
    Yeah, I thought. And he’s wearing a plaid robe and sitting in my father’s chair.
    After school his pickup truck was in the driveway. It was filled with stuff. Their stuff. Mattresses, a grandfather clock, a big white desk. Furniture that would look like strangers in our house.
    I guess I should