Three Sisters Read Online Free PDF

a dry cleaning store across the street, a car wash, a pizza place. A man passed on a three-wheel bike. He stopped at a trash can, picked out two empty soda bottles, stashed them into a wire basket with other empties.
    In the kitchen David was still Working away at the scale. She said, “You’re not afraid of breaking it?”
    “Have some faith, will you, Karen?”
    “David, not to be mean about it, but you always break things. Remember that clock you were going to fix—”
    “It was beyond repair, Karen. Nobody could have fixed it.”
    “- and your mother’s toaster which, you told me, she ended up throwing out—”
    “That is not very friendly to remind me of that.”
    “- and that little TV—”
    “It was an old piece of junk. I thought I could resurrect it as a gift to my father.”
    “Your intentions are good. Where’s Eggbert? You didn’t break him, did you?”
    David looked at her over the scale. “Eggbert?”
    “Disaster! You’ve forgotten already?”
    They were both doing the Health and Family Life unit this quarter. In the interests of teaching his class “what it means to be responsible for another soul,” Mr. Albright had assigned each student the task of carrying around either an uncooked egg or a goldfish for two weeks. “Just think of that egg as your child. I want to see your child in school with you. If you want to leave your child, you have to get a baby-sitter. When you sit down to eat lunch, you must know where your child is and, in the case of those who choose a goldfish, you better make sure your child gets to eat properly.”
    “The egg,” Karen said. “Eggbert. Your favorite kid, Davey. The friend of my kid, Gladys Goldfish.”
    “Karen, you’re worrying a lot today.” He pointed to the cupboard where Eggbert was sitting next to a heap of dirty dishes.
    “Don’t leave poor Eggbert there. He might get broken.”
    David sighed. “Say break or broken once more, go ahead, I dare you.”
    “Break. Broken. Brokest.” She leaped up as he dived for her.
    “You’re not going to get away with this, Freed.” “Don’t break anything,” she yelled as they galloped around the furniture. He caught her in the corner between the couch and the TV. “Ah … uh. … oh … David. Davey! You’re breaking my ribs.” He didn’t want to let go. Hugs and hands. And he was a lot stronger than she, although she didn’t just limply let him do anything he wanted. Which, lately, was more and more. “Sex is natural,” he’d informed her. “Haven’t you heard the news? It’s wrong to stifle your basic biology.”
    She hadn’t known what to say to him. She’d talked to Liz about it, not quite coming out with it, picking her way delicately around the subject, as if it were a bomb that might go off in her face. But Liz knew. “Look, Karen,” she said, “don’t let him talk you into anything. I tell you that from personal experience. From where I am now, I can see I picked the wrong person and the wrong time. It was—not good. But even if it had been the right person and the right time—no, I don’t think fifteen is exactly the right time for anyone. So think about it, Karen.” She had. She did. And she had come to some conclusions. “I love you a lot as a friend,” she said now, holding Davey’s hands.
    “That’s great. I love you a lot, too.” “But … ah … don’t take this wrong; there’s something missing.”
    “Hey, hold it! I’m all here. Nothing missing. Look.” “Quit that, Davey. I don’t mean missing in you.” “You’ve got something wrong with you?” “Maybe so.” A disturbing thought. “Something’s
    missing in my feelings—do you know what I mean?”
    He puffed up his lips, shook his head clownishly. “What is this missing mysterious matter?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, “because I’ve never had it.”
    “Then maybe whatever is missing is not, in fact, missing. Maybe everything is where it’s supposed to be. Me, boy. You, girl.”
    Karen