The Murderer's Daughters Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pleasant Thing It Is To Be Thankful, Bible: Psalm 147” before a woman stepped out from behind the frosted administration door.
    The midgety-short woman appeared childish until you saw the scowlembedded in her face. She placed her hands on her thick waist and asked, “Yes?”
    Uncle Hal coughed before speaking. “Mrs. Parker?” The woman nodded as though she were a hundred feet taller. “Hal Soloman. We spoke last week?”
    She gave another royal nod and crossed her arms over her pigeony chest. “You have Louise and Meredith with you?” she asked.
    “Here they are.” Uncle Hal pushed us forward, a hand behind each of our backs.
    “Louise is the older one, right?” Mrs. Parker tipped her head to the side. “You are eleven?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I’d never called anyone ma’am before, but this woman was most definitely a ma’am.
    Merry sniffled.
    “Merry and Lulu. That’s what we call them.” Uncle Hal kept a hand on Merry’s shoulder.
    “Yes. You’re not Meredith’s and Louise’s legal guardian, correct?” she asked. “That would be their grandmother? Zelda Zachariah?”
    “I have the papers from her, as you requested.” Uncle Hal drew an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
    Mrs. Parker took the glasses hanging from a chain around her neck and balanced them on her fat nose. She made clucking noises as she looked over the long sheets of paper covered with black type, stopping only when Merry’s choking sounds were too loud for any person to ignore. Mrs. Parker took off her glasses, tipped her head, and took Merry’s chin in her hand.
    “Meredith, correct? And you’ll be seven in December?”
    Merry nodded.
    Mrs. Parker bent down and patted my sister’s shoulder. “You’ll be in the Bluebird dorm, dear. You’ll have blue blankets and blue nightgowns.” She offered this as though Merry would find it comforting. “You’ll have a set of drawers and a shelf for books, if you have any.”
    My sister nodded again.
    “Most of the time, we have no one here to hold you when you cry. Sad,but true. The best thing you can do is find ways to comfort yourselves. I advise new girls to take up a hobby as soon as possible. You can pick either cross-stitching or crocheting. The East Side Women’s Group donates kits. Your floor mother will show them to you.”

4

Merry
1974
     
     
    I scuffed through dried leaves, hoping I looked like a normal almost-nine-year-old girl shopping with her grandmother instead of what I was, a motherless girl with a father in prison, who lived in a home for girls, which was just a name for orphanage.
    “Again your sister’s not coming?” Grandma took my hand, waiting for the Flatbush Avenue traffic to slow down.
    “She has to study.” Every other Saturday, Grandma asked the same question, and I gave the same answer, sidestepping Lulu’s refusal to see Daddy.
    “So how is everything at that place?” Grandma always called the Duffy-Parkman Home for Girls that place.
    “Everything’s fine.” I gave her hand a little tug.
    “Fine. Never mind with the fine. You live in an orphanage. So tell me, how is that fine? It’s all because of that Cilla.
Ptoi.
I spit on her and her useless husband.” Grandma repeated some version of a spit or curse on Aunt Cilla every Saturday. “It’s okay to cross now?” she asked.
    I checked the road left to right. “It’s safe.”
    We wove around the fruit seller wrapped in two ragged sweaters, Grandma sidestepping his stack of pumpkins.
    “You’re doing great, Grandma. I think your eyes are getting better.”
    Grandma shook her head. “Dream on,
tatelah.
These eyes are shot.”
    “Think good energy, Grandma. Send good karma to your eyes like Susannah said. Maybe they’ll get better. Then Lulu and I can come live with you.” I squeezed her hand to show her how much I loved her and what a help I could be.
See how strong and dependable I am!
    “Enough. Every week it’s the same story,” Grandma said.