Seven Kinds of Hell Read Online Free PDF

for that kind of stability. That’s what friendship is, I guess: Ma and Louise were never huggy-huggy—Louise no more demonstrative than Ma—and we weren’t living in each other’s pockets all the time. But they were always there for each other, and for us, two underemployed single mothers struggling together.
    I shrugged, unlocked the door, let us in. “Have a seat. The fridge is empty, but if you want a glass of water?”
    “I’m good.”
    “Let me get changed, and we’ll get going.”
    Sean’s voice followed me to my room. “Zoe, where are you going to go? You got this place cleaned out.”
    The reason for my leaving so hastily—another tricky topic. “Um, dunno.”
    “Zoe.”
    “Yes?”
    “What’s up?”
    I finished pulling my hoodie over my head and grabbed my backpack. “Um.”
    “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “I think my father’s family has located me.” The detail of their similarity to me wasn’t important.
    “Shit.” A pause. “So no idea where you’re going yet?”
    I knew I had to visit my grandmother, but after that…“Nope.”
    “Oh.” He flushed red. “Well, if you want, you can stay with me—”
    I shook my head. No way was I going to lead those other Beasts to Sean. “Naw, thanks. I’m going to put some distance between me and them. Then I’ll figure it out.”
    “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”
    I locked up and debated leaving the key. I didn’t know if I’d be staying here tonight, but figured I should hang on to it because I still had to stop by my grandmother’s.
    Things got quiet between us again on the drive to Boston. Two-thirds of a team isn’t quite the same when they’re doing their best not to talk about the other third.
    “Seeing anyone?” I asked as I negotiated the merge onto Route 128. Driving in Massachusetts was a little like playing
Grand Theft Auto
without the rewards.
    “No. Too much going on with the survey. The hours are ridiculous. I come home beat-up, exhausted, and smelling like an animal. No woman wants that.”
    I nodded, remembering the laundry the three of us had generated when we were all in the field at once. At the end of one particularly noxious project, working near a Superfund site, we’d buried our work clothes. We didn’t dare burn them and wouldn’t risk leaving them in the trash for a homeless person to find. “All the glamour of working on a road crew with none of the union benefits.”
    “Maybe next winter, when we’re out of the field and in the office.” Sean hitched and squirmed. The suit fit fine but was wool, and it was warming up outside.
    The closer we got to Boston University, the easier and harder it became for me. The traffic was even worse than I remembered, but I felt like I was fitting myself back into the flow of the area. The university might have been attended by smarter and more important people, but it belonged to me. The last year I was there, I’d been able to live on campus, which was new to me, despite my six-year undergraduate tour of public institutions in three states. Until Ma got the steady gig at BU, we’d moved so much, my transcript was a patchwork of classes from colleges up and down the East Coast. Living on campus was a revelation: in the cafeteria, you could eat all you wanted, and if you were quick about it, youcould sneak food out. Other students might grumble about the food’s quality and doing unfamiliar chores, but I shook my head in wonder. They’d never been as hungry as I’d been on occasion, or they would have concentrated on eating, not bitching. And you don’t complain about doing laundry if you’ve ever had to wash your clothes with the same bar of soap you showered and shampooed with.
    The archaeology department might not have had the biggest budget in the world, but if you can do 90 percent of your work with a few old shovels and buckets and handmade sifting screens, you don’t need much else. Same for the lab: I learned I could do a passable