The New Yorker Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t care. If you don’t come home, we’ll move in here.”
    “Silas will kill you.”
    “I know the dog doesn’t like me, but he certainly won’t kill me.”
    “I’m supposed to watch these people’s house.”
    “You can come back and check on it.”
    “I don’t want to come with you.”
    “You look sick, Michael. Have you been sick?”
    “I’m not leaving with you, Elsa.”
    “O.K. We’ll come back.”
    “What do you want me back for?”
    “To help me take care of that child. She drives me crazy. Get the dog and come on.”
    Michael lets Silas out of the bedroom. He picks up his bag of grass and his pipe and what’s left of the bag of pecans, and follows Elsa to the door.
    “Pecans?” Elsa asks.
    “My grandmother sent them to me.”
    “Isn’t that nice. You don’t look well, Michael. Do you have a job?”
    “No. I don’t have a job.”
    “Carlos can get you a job, you know.”
    “I’m not working in any factory.”
    “I’m not asking you to work right away. I just want you in the house during the day with Mary Anne.”
    “I don’t want to hang around with her.”
    “Well, you can fake it. She’s your daughter.”
    “I know. That doesn’t make any impression on me.”
    “I realize that.”
    “Maybe she isn’t mine,” Michael says.
    “Do you want to drive, or shall I?” Elsa asks.
    Elsa drives. She turns on the radio.
    “If you don’t love me, why do you want me back?” Michael asks.
    “Why do you keep talking about love? I explained to you that I couldn’t take care of that child alone anymore.”
    “You want me back because you love me. Mary Anne isn’t that much trouble to you.”
    “I don’t care what you think as long as you’re there.”
    “I can just walk out again, you know.”
    “You’ve only walked out twice in seven years.”
    “The next time, I won’t get in touch with Carlos.”
    “Carlos was trying to help.”
    “Carlos is evil. He goes around putting curses on things.”
    “Well, he’s your friend, not mine.”
    “Then why did he talk?”
    “I asked him where you were.”
    “I was on the verge of picking up a barmaid,” Michael says.
    “I don’t know how I could help loving you,” Elsa says.
    “Where are we going, Daddy?”
    “To water plants.”
    “Where are the plants?”
    “Not far from here.”
    “Where’s Mommy?”
    “Getting her hair cut. She told you that.”
    “Why does she want her hair cut?”
    “I can’t figure her out. I don’t understand your mother.”
    Elsa has gone with a friend to get her hair done. Michael has the car. He is tired of being cooped up watching daytime television with Mary Anne, so he’s going to Prudence and Richard’s even though he just watered the plants yesterday. Silas is with them, in the back seat. Michael looks at him lovingly in the rearview mirror.
    “Where are we going?”
    “We just started the ride. Try to enjoy it.”
    Mary Anne must have heard Elsa tell him not to take the car; she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself.
    “What time is it?” Mary Anne asks.
    “Three o’clock.”
    “That’s what time school lets out.”
    “What about it?” Michael asks.
    He shouldn’t have snapped at her. She was just talking to talk. Since all talk is just a lot of garbage anyway, he shouldn’t have discouraged her. He reaches over and pats her knee. She doesn’t smile, as he hoped she would. She is sort of like her mother.
    “Are you going to get a haircut, too?” she asks.
    “Daddy doesn’t have to get a haircut, because he isn’t trying to get a job.”
    Mary Anne looks out the window.
    “Your great-grandma sends Daddy enough money for him to stay alive. Daddy doesn’t want to work.”
    “Mommy has a job,” Mary Anne says. His wife is an apprentice bookbinder.
    “And you don’t have to get your hair cut, either,” he says.
    “I want it cut.”
    He reaches over to pat her knee again. “Don’t you want long hair, like Daddy?”
    “Yes,” she says.
    “You just said