The Art of Mending Read Online Free PDF Page A

here’s Laura,” and handed the receiver to me. He’s never been one to chat on what he calls a modest instrument of torture, but you would think he might have learned to be a bit less abrupt. My sister was used to it by now, of course, but I was always having to explain to new friends that my husband was really a very nice guy, he just had no telephone etiquette.
    “Were you sleeping?” Caroline asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “You weren’t . . .”
    “No.”
    “Okay. Listen, I’m sorry to call this late, but I wanted to catch you before you got to Mom and Dad’s. I’ve been . . . there’s something I have to do.”
    “Yeah? What is it?”
    “Well, I want to have us kids get together, just by ourselves—you, me, and Steve. A restaurant, maybe; we could go out for dinner or something.”
    “Why?” To plan Mom and Dad’s anniversary? I wondered. It would be fifty-five years this September: admirable, but not something you usually make a big deal out of.
    “I want to talk about some things.”
    “What things?” I began to get alarmed. “Is it something about your health?” Pete turned on the bedside lamp, mouthed
What’s up?
I lifted my shoulders:
I don’t know.
    “No, it’s . . . I’ve just been thinking a lot, lately, about the way we were brought up, and I—well, there are some things I want to ask you and Steve, with no one else around. This will be a good time to do it. Bill’s not coming this year; he’s going to finish putting in our new bathroom. And Tessa won’t be there either; Steve said she’s got to be in Atlanta. Pete won’t mind if the three of us take off for a couple of hours, will he?”
    I didn’t know whether to be worried or annoyed. “But . . . Caroline, just tell me, what do you want to talk about?”
    “I don’t want to get into it now. But I’d really like to have us all get together. Would you just help me arrange it?”
    “Well,
yeah.
We’ll pick a day when we’re there and just do it. It’s not that hard.”
    “I’d hoped we could pick a day now. And then maybe you could call Steve and let him know. It’ll be harder for him to say no if you and I have already agreed to it. Would you please do that?”
    “Fine. How about the second night we’re there? The first night we’ll have to hang around. But the next night we’ll go out somewhere. How about Snuffy’s; you want to go to Snuffy’s?”
    “Anywhere. Thank you, Laura. So you’ll call Steve tonight?”
    “It’s better with Steve if you don’t plan ahead. I’ll just tell him. He’ll come.”
    “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    I leaned over Pete to hang up the phone and lay down again. “Caroline wants to talk to me and Steve alone. I don’t know what about.”
    “Is she upset about something?”
    “No, I wouldn’t say upset, exactly, but she sounds kind of . . . intense.”
    “Well. What else is new?”
    “This felt different. She says she wants to talk about some things that happened when we were growing up. I hope she doesn’t mention the time I told her about Jesus on the cross. I hope she forgot about that.”
    “Why, what did you say?”
    “Oh, just . . . you know, I told her the story of the crucifixion. And made her cry.”
    Pete turned out the bedside light, settled down under the sheets, yawned. “That’s not so bad.”
    “No, you don’t understand. Religious education wasn’t the goal. Making her cry was. Not that it was hard. Caroline was always oversensitive. She cried if you looked at her wrong. Literally.” I moved closer to Pete, closed my eyes.
    “I’m waiting,” he said.
    “Why do you have to be such a good listener?”
    “What did you say?”
    “Well, I overdramatized a bit, okay? I talked about how it hurts when you stick a pin in your hand. And then I said, ‘And just imagine. They put NAILS in. They
pounded
NAILS in.’ Stuff like that.”
    “You said that? That
is
pretty bad.”
    “Yeah, I know. But you did some terrible things to your brother and