The Pig Did It Read Online Free PDF

again,” she was saying. “I can see to that.”
    Aaron wondered if now was the time to tell her the truth—that he had come here to suffer. He had come to deepen the lines on his forehead, to implant a mournfulness into his eyes that would forever silence the joyful and inspire shame in the indifferent.
    Aaron decided he’d wait and tell his aunt another time. Or, better, she would become aware and ask hesitant questions, becoming more sympathetic and compassionate with each and every answer he’d quietly, stoically give. She would be moved. She would admire him. He would become choked with gratitude. Soon, but not now.
    Kitty had cleared a space on the table, then on the stove, brushing the wallpaper off to the floor where it could unroll if it wanted to, putting the paste pot on a rear burner so she could use the front. The talk was of Aaron’s pig adventure, the young woman’s interesting attributes, and the kindness of young Mr. Sweeney. At the mention of the name, his aunt had said, “Maybe you’d like to stop talking and eat what’s been put before you.” For his first meal in Ireland, Aaron was given spaghetti with enough made for the two of them and the pig besides, with the pig to get most of the tomato sauce. The pig would also enjoy a full box of corn flakes, a near-full jar of applesauce, and what looked like the remains of a tuna fish casserole. (A stalk of celery and a turnip were considered, but decided against. The barley soup and the chocolate pudding, she said, would be saved for the morning.)
    The food was stirred into a wholesome mash in a dishpan. Kitty stuck her finger in, then licked it clean. “Let it never be said the guest of a McCloud goes hungry.” She stuck her finger in again, licked it again, and nodded her head in approval of what she had wrought. Then she took it out to the pig.
    Aaron was given an apple for dessert and told to take it upstairs to his room so she could finish the wallpapering without him in the way. That he had been offered no television, no drink in the living room, surprised him. He had looked forward to refusing. He had wanted to speak of his weariness, to hint at his need for solitude, but he was given no chance. No different from days long gone, he felt be was being shooed up to bed; he’d been enough trouble for one day.
    Aaron had dressed by the open window so the ocean breeze could air first his body, then his clothes, cooled by a wind made newly fresh by the pasture dew and the mist not yet fully dissolved out over the sea. He took in a deep breath to fill his lungs with longing, but before he could exhale he saw the pig bound out from the side of the house, more a gamboling lamb than a low-bellied swine. Without pause it trotted into the field and began to root with its snout, digging down into the grass, tearing deep into the turf.
    Aaron exhaled. No doubt his aunt had let the pig out of the shed. But its presence, its inclusion in the view, seemed an affront to the sad thoughts he’d begun to generate in his mind. The austerity of the scene was disrupted; no longer was it the perfect setting for the drama he was determined to enact. The cadenced fall of the waves was reduced to distant commentary by the snortings and snufflings that Aaron could hear as clearly as if the pig were there with him in the room. The pig was an intruder, as much on Aaron’s sensibilities as on the general scene, and it must be dispatched without delay.
    He put on his high thick-soled boots, his Timberlands, presumably waterproof, for walking on the beach. The woman—Lolly whatever-her-name-was—must come and collect the animal immediately. Aaron would even forgo the thanks he’d hoped to receive. The woman could take her good cheer and her pig and move on. He no longer required her gratitude, the surprised smile, the leaping laugh at the sight of the wayward pig returned. The handshake, the soft and healthy