Tenth of December Read Online Free PDF Page B

say, “You idiot, this is your child, your child you’re—”
    “So what were you guys thinking of naming him?” the woman said, coming out of the kitchen.
    The cruelty and ignorance just radiated from her fat face, with its little smear of lipstick.
    “I’m afraid we won’t be taking him after all,” Marie said coldly.
    Such an uproar from Abbie! But Josh—she would haveto praise him later, maybe buy him the Italian Loaves Expansion Pak—hissed something to Abbie, and then they were moving out through the trashed kitchen (past some kind of crankshaft on a cookie sheet, past a partial red pepper afloat in a can of green paint ) while the lady of the house scuttled after them, saying, wait, wait, they could have it free, please take it—she just really wanted them to have it.
    No, Marie said, it would not be possible for them to take it at this time, her feeling being that one really shouldn’t possess something if one wasn’t up to properly caring for it.
    “Oh,” the woman said, slumping in the doorway, the scrambling pup on one shoulder.
    Out in the Lexus, Abbie began to cry softly, saying, “Really, that was the perfect pup for me.”
    And it was a nice pup, but Marie was not going to contribute to a situation like this in even the smallest way.
    Simply was not going to do it.
    The boy came to the fence. If only she could say to him, with a single look, Life will not necessarily always be like this. Your life could suddenly blossom into something wonderful. It can happen. It happened to me .
    But secret looks, looks that conveyed a world of meaning with their subtle blah blah blah—that was all bullshit. What was not bullshit was a call to Child Welfare, where she knew Linda Berling, a very no-nonsense lady who would snatch this poor kid away so fast it would make that fat mother’s thick head spin.

    Callie shouted, “Bo, back in a sec!” and, swiping the corn out of the way with her non-pup arm, walked until there was nothing but corn and sky.
    It was so small it didn’t move when she set it down, just sniffed and tumped over.
    Well, what did it matter, drowned in a bag or starved in the corn? This way Jimmy wouldn’t have to do it. He had enough to worry about. The boy she’d first met with hair to his waist was now this old man shrunk with worry. As far as the money, she had sixty hidden away. She’d give him twenty of that and go, “The people who bought the pup were supernice.”
    Don’t look back, don’t look back , she said in her head as she raced away through the corn.
    Then she was walking along Teallback Road like a sportwalker, like some lady who walked every night to get slim, except that she was nowhere near slim, she knew that, and also knew that when sportwalking you did not wear jeans and unlaced hiking boots. Ha ha. She wasn’t stupid. She just made bad choices. She remembered Sister Lynette saying, “Callie, you are bright enough but you incline toward that which does not benefit you.” Yep, well, Sister, you got that right , she said to the nun in her mind. But what the hell. What the heck. When things got easier moneywise, she’d get some decent tennis shoes and start walking and get slim. And start night school. Slimmer. Maybe medical technology.She was never going to be really slim. But Jimmy liked her the way she was. And she liked him the way he was. Which maybe that’s what love was: liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better.
    Like right now she was helping Jimmy by making his life easier by killing something so he—no. All she was doing was walking, walking away from—
    What had she just said? That had been good. Love was liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better .
    Like Bo wasn’t perfect, but she loved him how he was and tried to help him get better. If they could keep him safe, maybe he’d mellow out as he got older. If he mellowed out, maybe he could someday have a family. Like there he was now in