The Place Will Comfort You Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You already said that.”
    â€œAren’t you missing your show?”
    â€œIt’s over. I came to be with you.”
    â€œI’m learning by heart.”
    She looks at my station. “And what else after?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œOnly this and then you’re free? You’re almost done!”
    â€œI’m having a hard time.”
    â€œFinish! Be done!”
    â€œThe copying I liked but nothing sticks.”
    She takes the mimeographed columns from my hands and breathes their purple scent, for a long time. When she comes up, the sun of good ideas lights her sky-blue eyes. She says, “You need a hands-on exercise.”
    And these are the things which the orphan says, get:
    Cream of wheat. Soy oil.
    Sliced salami. Plum jam.
    Corkscrew noodles in sauce.
    â€œAnything else red?” she says, rummaging through the fridge. She finds the ketchup in the door. “What else?”
    â€œA paper towel for each mess.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œFor the fire we’ll just make noise.”
    She says, “We’ll figure it out as we go.”
    Never was homework so alive.
    Red on the corners of the counter. Red at the base. This I will not forget. Grain meal whispering while pouring, as she waves cold cuts in the air. (She likes the way I can control the sandy stream. She nods. “You should fill your hands of it,” she says.) The sensation of the meal grains passed in the thousands, hand to hand. (She drapes the cold cuts on her shoulders like a pair of epaulettes. “Now hold still.”) The grains sopping the weight of drops and cleaving to each other, then to the creases of the palms. (“Mingle,” she says, twisting the oil cap.)
    We mingle it until our fingers turn the coarse dough gray. Our hands had looked perfectly clean.
    We push the matter into different shapes, then scoop and pound it into a sturdier stock and start over with an animal theme. We try again with the idea of a whole landscape, which needs a base. Salami is a natural choice. Fish sticks make good trees. Some of the plums in the jam are entirely whole, only shrunk and hollow. One contains part of a pit.
    Now, when the clock’s tin hand shudders, it’s no longer punishment to me. I don’t fill with the early sorrow of my favorite show coming and passing, unseen because unearned. The time draws close and I have earned the time. The sound of struggle is a prize.
    The solid foods come away easily. The sauces must be given a quick wipe. The meal-dough clings in the crack.
    â€œIt’s a good match,” the orphan says.
    We pat some more in, lick our fingers, smooth the edges, levelthe ridge. This day proceeds from good to best. My mother will be extraordinarily pleased.
    The orphan says we should correct the ceiling, too.
    She climbs up on the counter, stands with one shoe on each side of what is no longer a crack. She stretches her thin neck. “Go get some bleach. You have some on the spinning shelf that’s on the dryer.”
    She leaps down, runs off on a separate path. I return with bleach, she with a toilet brush and my father’s spare glasses. Both she hands to me. She takes the chemical. Under the kitchen sink my mother keeps a pair of rubber gloves. We each get one. She puts the stopper in the sink and pours the bleach inside, closing her eyes. I shield mine with the glasses while pushing off my shoes. She stays down while I go up. She dips, I scrub.
    â€œA little more,” she says. “A little more.” Until a key turns in the door. Immediately I jump down to the floor and hide the brush. Exactly how the job was done shouldn’t be what my mother sees first; I hang my gaze on the improvement we’ve begun. Where the stain was there is still a stain, except not beet-red anymore. It’s blue. The orphan dunks her gloved hand in the sink and pulls the stopper. Bleach gurgles away.
    My mother is surprised. First thing she does