Shaking out the Dead Read Online Free PDF

a Barbie off the nightstand, flung it at Tatum, and ran from her own room slamming Tatum inside.
    Tatum didn’t know to whom, if anyone, she was running. Mommy’s dead. Daddy’s getting out of Dodge. Rachael was learning that love is not unconditional despite what Mommy said, despite the pretty words in picture books geared to induce child self-esteem. Unconditional love doesn’t hold up in a world defined by action because it’s something people feel, not something people do. That’s what’s wrong with it.
    Tatum rose from the bed. Hand on the doorknob, she stole a last look at Rachael’s room, a little girl’s paradise. Tatum knew her apartment had no ruffled shams or lace curtains. No princess phone. When it came right down to it, Tatum doubted she owned anything pink at all.

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    The following morning, Tatum slid a square package wrapped in a coat into the hatch of her Celica. While Margaret’s friends had been packing for Rachael, Tatum had been doing some packing of her own. Discreetly as possible, she had combed the house for what to take for Rachael that she might need as her loss unfolded in a foreign land. She had decided on Margaret’s photo albums, and she hadn’t asked. She stole them. Her bet was that Lee would never notice. His plans weren’t to reminisce. His plans were to move on. Just as Tatum and Rachael were scheduled to leave that day, so was Lee. He was flying out to stay with his brother in Florida. He needed time, he said.
    It reminded Tatum of when her ex, Vincent, told her he needed space. She threw away the picante sauce and unused condiments. She took clothes to the Goodwill and scrunched the remaining items into less than half of the closet. She talked less, drew herself inward. But she couldn’t get small enough, quiet enough, couldn’t hold her breath long enough because Vincent didn’t want space, or more space. He wanted the space she occupied. He wanted something else in it.
    Tatum suspected Lee felt that way about time. He needed it filled with something new. So just three days after burying Margaret, armed with the irrationality of grief, he was beating feet out of town toward a future unencumbered by the past.
    Exiled as she was, Rachael would need the photo albums more, Tatum decided.
    Tatum slammed the hatch closed. The moment of truth had arrived. She turned to the front doorway where Rachael had been standing just seconds before, but there was no sign of her. Tatum looked out past the driveway and saw Rachael running as fast as her small feet would carry her across the brown-and-red, leaf-spattered earth.
    â€œWait,” Tatum said, firmly, to Lee. Then she went after Rachael, walking, following at a distance, her breath small ghosts in the morning air. She caught up to Rachael at the grave where Rachael huddled on the ground, looking like a small bundle, forgotten and left behind. Tatum hung back. From her polite distance, she saw Rachael framed by the surrounding trees, a larger one bending over the grave to a smaller one, branches meeting in a finger-touch like Michelangelo’s God and Man. Tatum imagined the tree roots creeping to each other beneath Margaret’s casket like lovers’ hands beneath a table, their brown and gnarled fingers tangling beneath the satin-lined box.
    Don’t be mad was Tatum’s silent message whispered from her mind to the dead.
    She approached Rachael from behind. Rachael’s white skin answered the morning chill with messy, red blotches.
    Then Rachael stood. Tatum tried to gently turn her to leave, but Rachael’s feet were bolted to the ground. She stared at the fresh mound of soil that had swallowed her mother. She continued staring, and Tatum wondered how long they would stand there if she didn’t assert her adult powers. Who would outlast whom, standing in the cold, knowing that the end of this moment was the end of so much?
    Tatum went down on one knee