The Family Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

and flushed, and they let the matter go as they crossed the parking lot. Sprouting up around the light posts were clusters of feathery green, and Dora stopped to point them out to Polly, saying they looked like Jared’s weed. They laughed about that, feeling a gossipy and sisterly camaraderie as they strolled along the avenue looking across toward the pale bulk of the boardinghouse.
    “She’s a funny woman,” said Polly, nodding toward the house.
    “Who? Jared’s mother? You’ve only seen her once, haven’t you?”
    “Um. At your wedding reception. That was the strangest bunch of people!”
    “Well,” Dora laughed, “they were my fellow boarders. Since we had the reception at the boardinghouse, it didn’t seem nice not to invite them.”
    “What was that woman’s name? Michaelson?”
    “The talker?”
    “Talker! That’s like calling Everest a little hill. And the guy with the fish…”
    “Mr. Singley. Mr. Singley talks to his fish. He has names for each of them. He calls them woozums.”
    “And the fanny pincher. The one with the strange eyes.”
    “Mr. Calclough. And Mr. Fries who does martial arts. When he shouts ‘Haieeee,’ the whole house shivers.”
    “You somehow just didn’t fit in with that bunch, sis.”
    “I was only going to be there temporarily.”
    “I wasn’t too crazy about the questions Momma asked, either. Were you a reliable cook and housekeeper? That pissed me off a little, and I told her just how lucky Jared was to get you, and what a great sister you’d been. Here’s where we turn.”
    Something clanged in Dora’s mind, like a coin in a pay phone. She chased the idea around, whatever it was, like chasing a memory of a dream when one first wakes up, only to lose it entirely.
    They crossed the avenue and started down the empty street. Everyone was home from work, cars were put away, doors were closed, everyone was inside having supper. The street was like a vacant movie set as they moved down one block, then past the first two houses on the next block, then the house with the Tree, or the two with the Tree between them. Dora looked up at it as she always did, nodding to it. The Tree seemed to nod back, as it always did.
    The next place was Jared’s. Dora saw two of her neighbors standing on the sidewalk with their mouths open, staring. She saw what they were staring at: a pile of laundry on the stoop. Then her mind sorted out what she was seeing, and she realized it wasn’t a pile of laundry, it was a body, Jared’s body, Jared lying on the stoop, a set of clippers fallen from his hand, one arm curled protectively around his head. Dora broke into a run.
    He wasn’t breathing. “Call for an ambulance,” she cried, handing Polly the key that had been in her hand. “Quick!”
    Polly went in, Dora rolled Jared off the stoop onto the grass, got him face up, started doing CPR, just the way they’d taught her, push push push push push, breath, breath; push push push push push, breath, breath. He was a funny color. He had little wounds all over his face and hands. Maybe other places, too, for his shirt and trousers looked as though he’d been through a barbed wire fence. Push push push push push. Breath. Breath. Push push push…
    Polly ran out of the house. “They’re on their way.”
    Dora just went on doing what she was doing. She heard the neighbors talking, then there were sirens coming, she heard the ambulance stop at the curb, shoes come running across the sidewalk, and she was suddenly thrust to one side of things, no longer responsible. She took a deep gasping breath, looking around for the neighbors. They were standing by the curb talking to a patrolman she knew, Ralph Gadden. He dismissed them, then came over to Dora to ask what the hell was going on. She told him what had happened.
    “You had any killer bees around here?” one of the paramedics asked. “Hornets, wasps, anything like that?”
    “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
    “This guy looks like he’s