The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors Read Online Free PDF Page B

with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. He didn’t care for lettuce or fresh vegetables or any other kind of pie but apple.
    The reverend slept, snoring, his right foot in spasm, on the Pitanks’ sofa after Sunday dinner. Buckley saw his bumpy zucchini nose growing bigger and bumpier with each Sunday meal. There had been four in a row now. The reverend’s right foot jerked and fell, jerked and fell on the arm of the sofa.

Excerpt from
THE HANDBOOK FOR LIGHTNING STRIKE SURVIVORS
    Danny Jones, pitcher for the Jolly Indians, stood under a tree with the rest of his team waiting out a rain delay when lightning struck the tree. Danny and his teammates were rushed to the emergency room. Danny remained conscious, saying, “It felt like a train hit me. Everything was white and loud.” For two days, Danny was numb from the waist down. Skipper McAdams and Jackson Feeley died.
    Danny, in addition to suffering anxiety, also suffers survivor’s guilt.
    According to Danny, “We [he and his former teammates] don’t talk about what happened. We just can’t.”

[5]
My mother’s father, 1978
Becca
    Becca’s mother, Mary, drummed her fingers on the table. She didn’t like fried chicken, so of course her mother, Edna Wickle, had fried chicken for dinner. Mary didn’t want to be here, but Edna had telephoned and said, “I’d like you to come home. I think if you talk to your sister, it’ll make a difference. Plus, I’m getting up there in years. I’d like to see my granddaughter.”
    Mary’s younger sister, Claire, was depressed and fat.
    Her father used to say, “You’re lucky, Mary. You have a nice figure. Not like Claire.” He somehow thought things between them were good and normal, while every day Mary imagined the horses trampling him, an accidental shooting, a tractor mishap.
    There was a scar on her lower back—the imprint of his belt buckle.
    “I think if you talk to Claire, she’ll listen. She admires you.”
    He lost his head. He didn’t mean it
. That’s what her mother had said.
    Now Edna wiped the countertop with a dishrag and opened the freezer. “Do you think Becca will want strawberry or vanilla?”
    Mary brushed a few crumbs from the table into her palm.
    “I’ve always liked strawberry,” Edna said.
    “Are you even going to ask how I’m doing?”
    “How are you?”
    “Rowe’s in the garage most nights.” Mary tossed the crumbs in the trash.
    “Becca’s not allergic to strawberry, is she? My aunt Lucille was allergic. It could run in the family. I hear a good many people have strawberry allergies. I can’t imagine.”
    “You’re not listening.”
    “No, Mary. I hear you. Your husband spends a lot of time in the garage.” Edna shut the freezer. “He likes cars, right? Fancy cars?”
    “Right.”
    “And I asked you: What do you think I should do about Claire? She’s my daughter who lives here with me, and she’s very sad.”
    “I think Claire’s depressed because you let Dad treat us like dogs. She fell in love with that idiot Tom because he’s worthless like Dad was.”
    Edna opened the freezer again. “I guess Becca could have strawberry
and
vanilla.”
    “Mom!”
    Edna thought that Mary’s confrontations were annoying. “And your husband spends his time in the garage because of your father? Why do you do this, Mary?”
    “Because he was a bastard and you didn’t do anything.”
    “Your father wasn’t perfect, but he never claimed to be. Is Rowan? Men aren’t angels, Mary. Strawberry or vanilla?” Edna set two half-gallons of ice cream on the table. “I don’t have chocolate. I can’t stand it. You ought to try talking to Claire in the morning. Be subtle, I think. She’s better-spirited in the morning.”
    “Why didn’t you stop Dad?”
    Edna put her hands on her hips and faced Mary. “I didn’t know you were coming home for this. Your father’s buried. You can’t blame him for
your
life. You’d think with all that schooling you’d know that.”
    “Dad