This One and Magic Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

she thinks. Artie. And now me. If I stayed, what would I bring to this house? What would follow me into this house?
    Mariel comes from the kitchen and kisses her. Dolly is five inches taller than her mother and has to lean down.
    â€œWe were scared you might not make that flight,” Mariel says.
    â€œMade it at the last minute.” The two women check each other out. Beige.
    â€œI see Uncle Hektor brought in my bags.” Dollypoints to the American Tourister and the Merle Norman tote by the stairs.
    â€œBut I have your room at home all ready.”
    â€œI’m staying here. Where’s Papa?”
    â€œI saw him go out on the dunes while ago.”
    â€œI’ll go find him.” Dolly turns and bumps into May who is carrying Jerry, the cat. “Will you take my suitcase up for me, sweetie? Any room.”
    â€œSure. Here, Aunt Mariel.” May hands her Jerry.
    May heads up the stairs and Dolly goes on out the door. For a moment, Mariel stands holding the cat, watching her tall graceful daughter run across the yard. “And hello to you, too, Dolly,” she murmurs.
    â€œHave you ever noticed how much she looks like me?” asks Sarah Sullivan’s shadow. “And Artie, of course.”
    Mariel sighs and goes back to the kitchen.
    Â 
    He looks old, Dolly thinks, walking up the path toward her father.
    He turns at that moment to see Dolly. She kneels beside him and holds him.
    â€œI’ve counted fifteen barges,” he says.
    â€œHello, Papa.” Dolly smells the warmth of his skin, the shaving lotion.
    â€œTraffic through here gets worse every year. There was a jubilee last night. Did you know that?”
    â€œI heard.”
    Then they are silent, looking out at the bay.

EIGHT
Tomato Sandwiches
    ON THE DAY THE STOCK MARKET CRASHED IN 1929, THOMAS Sullivan sat on the dune at Harlow, right where his son and granddaughter are sitting almost sixty years later, and watched his very pregnant wife, Sarah, waddle down the beach. Later, he would remember how happy he was on this day, how the sun was pleasantly warm, and how everything seemed to be golden, even Sarah in her yellow dress, bending awkwardly to examine something at the edge of the water. Sarah, sensing his interest, had looked up and waved. It was a picture he would carry with him the rest of his life, Sarah at the water’s edge, one hand raised, the other resting on her huge stomach. Our child, he had thought, and literally felt his heart skip a beat. In two weeks he would know it was two children, a boy and a girl. And he would have learned about the stock market crash, how, as he sat in the sun, desperate men were jumping from buildings, their legacy financial chaos.
    But for Thomas Sullivan, this October day was most memorable because it was the day they signed the finalpapers on the house at Harlow. Then they drove back to their apartment in Mobile, and Sarah fixed tomato sandwiches and iced tea and brought them to the screened porch.
    â€œThe house is perfect,” she said. “That view, Thomas. Just think about it.”
    â€œWe probably should have put in another bathroom.”
    Sarah put her hands over her ears. “Not one negative word about my house.”
    Thomas smiled. “I promise.”
    It was a day that would go down in the history books. The twins, entwined that day in Sarah’s womb, would study it. So would their children and grandchildren. But Thomas would remember the day for goldenrod lining the shell road that led to the house, and Sarah looking up to wave, her blonde hair catching the sun, her hand pressed against her huge belly. It was a memory so magical, he kept it to himself. His gift.

NINE
Peach Cobbler
    â€œ PUSSY-WHIPPED,” REESE WHITLEY MUTTERS. “ALL THE MEN IN this family pussy-whipped.” He is running the vacuum over the already clean living room rug at Mariel’s insistence, pausing every few minutes to wipe his nose on his