Pie Town Read Online Free PDF Page A

gum in the world.”
    Alex grinned.
    “By the way, I saw your great-grandfather this morning. He’s making buttermilk cornbread and cowboy beans for your birthday party.” Roger took a stick from the pack and added it to the one he was already chewing, placing the pack back in his pocket.
    Alex nodded. “It’s a Pie Town tradition,” he said. “Goes with the green chile stew Ms. Bea always makes.” He chewed a bit more as the two sat in silence. “And the Spanish rice Mrs. Watson always brings.” He paused. “You think Mom will make the party this year?” he asked.
    Roger hesitated. He reached up and took the can of soda, finishing the drink in one long sip. He didn’t answer at first.
    Angel had been gone for more than ten years. She missed her son’s party the previous year and the year before that. She had returned to Pie Town on his birthday about five years earlier. Alex had been in the hospital, and she didn’t find out until she got home. She drove over to Albuquerque to see him, but he had been in surgery when she arrived. She left before he awoke. That was the last time she had been home.
    Roger kept up with his daughter through friends in sheriff’s departments across the state. The last he heard about Angel, she had moved up north, to Taos. She was working at a bar, living with some hippie. But that information had been delivered about a year before. He wasn’t sure if she was still there or not.
    He shook his head. “I don’t know, Alex,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Last time I talked to her, she didn’t have a car or a phone.”
    There was a pause. They both listened to the noises outside. A dog was barking somewhere off in the distance, and they could hear the traffic from Highway 60. Frieda was humming in the back bedroom.
    “Don’t worry, Grandpa,” Alex said, sounding much older than his almost eleven years. “She just needs to be somewhere else. Besides, I have a feeling there will be plenty of friends at the party, maybe even some new ones.”
    Roger looked at his grandson, wondering how he could be so forgiving, so understanding. He knew that the boy had a lot of people in his life who loved him, played with him, took care of him, but Roger knew there was never anyone who could take the place of a child’s mother.
    Everyone tried to pretend Angel wasn’t necessary to Alex’s growing-up, wasn’t crucial to his healthy development. They tried to act like the town and family together were somehow enough, could somehow make up for her disappearance. But deep down everybody, especially his grandparents, worried that a boy without his mother, a boy abandoned by his one known parent, a boy as insightful and sharp and fragile as Alex, would always question and probably always mourn her absence.
    “You want a clown or wagon rides this year?” Roger asked, changing the subject away from talk about Angel. “Or have you gotten too old for that kind of thing now that you’re taking algebra?”
    Alex smiled. “I’d like music,” he said. “The softball game and everybody we love laughing together and dancing to music.”
    Roger studied his grandson. He worried about the boy. He worried about his health and his disability, how he would grow up suffering so much. But in his short life, and unlike everyone else around him, Alex never appeared to be bothered by the way things were. He seemed to never regret what everyone else thought was missing.
    “Then music you will have,” Roger responded. “Because your grandfather does know some of the finest guitar pickers in Catron County.”
    “And that is probably because my grandfather is the best guitar picker in Catron County,” the boy noted.
    “You trying to sweet-talk me into letting you stay up all night for your birthday?” Roger asked as he stood to leave. “Because you know bribery is a misdemeanor in this state.”
    Alex grinned. “And you would know that because you are the sheriff,” he said, backing up