Other Shepards Read Online Free PDF Page B

in science does not mean I like it.
    Baby Freddie is snoring itty-bitty baby snores from inside the Port-o-Crib that Carla set up in Dad’s study. I bend to whisper good night and catch a scent of his skin. I can’t ever remember baby Geneva smelling so fresh. I always imagine us both born slightly dried and crumbled, like cheddar cheese, prewrapped in musty hand-me-down nightgowns. No, we could never have been like Freddie, so new and soft and thoughtless.
    I run a finger over the downy fold of baby Freddie’s neck and listen to his breathing, a lispy lullaby that draws my eyelids closed. I better start my French verbs. Geneva stayed in the kitchen today because of my bet, and I never break my bets. It’s not the kind of risk I take.
    Late that night, I wake to the sound of my name. I rise from my bed and pad across the hall to Geneva’s room. She sits bolt upright, all sleep-shadowed eyes and sleep-prickly hair.
    “Another dream?” I ask.
    “It was for real. I keep telling you. They were here.”
    “Tell me again,” I whisper, sliding onto the edge of her bed. My just-awakened body bends awkwardly, and I crook my fingers over my cold toes.
    “Geneva?” Mom’s thin silhouette outlines the doorway. In the darkness, dressed in her slippers and robe, she looks more frail than by daylight, when she is outfitted for work in one of her neutral suits and knotted silk scarves.
    “She had a bad dream about Elizabeth and John and Kevin,” I tell her. “She’s fine now.”
    “But they mustn’t ever be a bad dream,” Mom chides us mildly. “They’re angels now, watching over you girls and protecting you. Your brothers and sister love you both so dearly.”
    “They stood in my room and they told me …,” the quick, warning shift of Mom’s body makes Geneva hesitate, “that they were in heaven with God and all the archangels and they miss us. But heaven has lots of sunsets and they’re very happy.”
    “Well, that doesn’t sound like a bad dream,” Mom says. “To me, that sounds like a very nice visit from your family.”
    “Visiting hours are over,” Geneva mumbles, her voice too small for Mom to hear.
    “I’ll stay with her,” I say. “Don’t worry about us. Get some sleep.”
    “You’re a love, Holland. Good night, girls.”
    Mom closes the door quickly, as if I suddenly might change my mind. Geneva’s nocturnal visions lost their punch years ago, when we realized they could not be cured except by the nightly sedatives prescribed by our family psychiatrist, Dr. Bushnell, which left us with a Geneva so groggy that she could barely put her shoes on the right feet the next morning. When she was taken off the pills, the dreams resumed. “Just leave her” was Dr. Bushnell’s next piece of advice. “Like a baby who must learn to stop crying. Just leave her and eventually she will sleep through the night.”
    Mom and Dad seemed to have appreciated this suggestion, and now it is rare for them to respond to Geneva. Maybe they do not even hear her anymore, since she only calls my name. But to me, Geneva’s voice is as harsh as a dog whistle, claiming me from anywhere, forcing me to run and fetch and stay. Sometimes, she has admitted, she calls out to me for no other reason than to make sure that I am here, that I will come.
    “You need a bath?” I ask. “Would water fix you?”
    She doesn’t answer, just pushes out from under her blankets and thumps her feet on the floor.
    “Shhh.”
    “Who cares?” She sniffs. “Who hears?”
    “Shhh,” I repeat. I follow her out to the hall and into the bathroom. Geneva is not modest; she sheds her nightgown and underpants while I run the faucet, then sinks cautiously into the tub, slowly allowing the steam and hot water to envelop her.
    “Bubbles, please,” she yawns. I fetch the bottle from under the sink and pour a trickle of purple slime into the stream.
    “Tell me,” I say. “You haven’t dreamt about them in a while.”
    “It’s real,