The Grave of God's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

made him look even younger.
    “Your father’s still at the Silver Slipper and I’m going to get him,” she answered flatly. Her anger had boiled down to fact.
    I pulled on my sweater and, just as I’d gotten it over my head, my mother was on me with a comb, running it through my hairand yanking out the knots. This was a ritual for her, and I’d given up protesting. She would stand in front of me, carefully part my hair and tuck it behind my ears as if I was incapable of doing it on my own. She never braided my hair or put any ribbons in it, but there was a certain way she wanted me to look, one in which I had no say. Once she was satisfied with my appearance, my mother would stop and admire my face and hair without looking into my eyes, as if I were a mannequin she was dressing for a shop window.
    We had one mirror in the house, over the basin in the washroom, but I rarely stood before it. I knew what I looked like and I knew I was not pretty. Not like other girls I’d seen. And not like my mother. Even though she wore her weariness like a heavy mask, it could not blunt her fair features or hide the hint of the flexibility for a smile in her lips. In spite of her old clothes and the kerchiefs that covered her hair, my mother was still a woman that men glanced at and admired. I saw them do it. I also saw them look at me, only briefly. I did not share that incalculable currency of beauty with my mother, though I found that a comfort. I could conceal myself, go unnoticed. My plainness was a kind of camouflage, one that allowed me to decide if I wanted to exist or not. Yet when it came to my mother, there was no hiding.
    “You’ll take your brother to school this morning,” she instructed, wrapping a scarf over her head with a flourish, then knotting it under her chin as if she were strapping on a helmet.
    “And hold his hand when you walk with him. The roads are slippery from the rain.”
    Because my mother had woken us unexpectedly and hustled us into our clothes, it was only when we were walking out the door that I noticed that her painting of the Black Madonna was gone.
    “Where’s your picture?” I asked, surprising myself as much as my mother with the question. Her face deflated into a wounded stare.
    “Yeah,” Martin chimed in. “Where did it go?”
    In that agonizing instant, I sensed that my father must have sold the Black Madonna. Most likely, it was for money to buy alcohol. The realization made my chest feel like it was filled with sand.
    “Come on,” my mother told us, her voice wavering just above a whisper. “It’s time to leave.”
    Outside, a steady drizzle was falling, making the air feel dense, almost solid. I took Martin’s hand and together we watched my mother walk toward the end of the alley, the mud sucking at her boots as she went, her shoulders hunched against the chill. As she neared the corner of the alley, I willed her to look back at us, maybe even to wave, something that would take the edge off the morning. She didn’t. My mother rounded the corner and disappeared, leaving the road empty except for the growing puddles, as if she had never been there at all.
    “Should we follow her?” Martin asked.
    “No,” I said. “We can’t go where she’s going.”
    The Silver Slipper was open twenty-four hours a day to cater to all the different shifts that clocked in and out of the mill and the salt plant. The tavern was owned by the Pierwsza brothers, Edgar and Clement, who took turns manning the bar. Both were sturdy, wide-faced men, though neither stood far above five feet. What they lacked in height, the brothers made up for in menace. Fights would often break out in the Silver Slipper, but if either of the brothers was forced to get involved, someone would end up needing a doctor. They were notorious for keeping baseball bats behindthe bar, but these were no ordinary bats. They had hammered nails into the ends, and the brothers were said to come out swinging if there was any