Winter Birds Read Online Free PDF Page B

rooms you didn’t use, for Mama to grade and bundle. Papa agreed to the arrangement but he didn’t much like it. Mr. Rejenkins paid too much attention to Mama from the start. The day after you moved into the house Mr. Rejenkins knocked on the door first thing in the morning, to see whether Mama was satisfied with the condition of the house, he said. Though the morning was cold he smelled of sweat. Every few minutes he hitched up his pants to keep them from sliding off his slab of belly. When he smiled you counted his jagged yellow teeth. Amy Kay said from the way his clothes looked he mustdress before he went to bed and sleep in them to get that many wrinkles. But someone took wonderful care of his shoes. They shone so bright you might have seen your reflection in the patent leather tips. The waxed black laces tied in a lopsided bow.
    That first morning he kept looking down at his shoes and then looking at Mama, as if he expected her to say something about them. Mama was polite as she led him through the chilled rooms, showing him the ripped-out back door screen and the broken lock on the back door. She pointed out in her most formal voice that without a lock and a good screen on the door she could hardly feel safe in the house. She showed him the leaky ceilings in two of the bedrooms, which would rot the roof if he weren’t careful. She indicated the loose floorboards in the kitchen, which had already caused her to stumble when she was unpacking her pots and pans. Suppose she had been carrying hot soup instead? Mama pointed out the broken windows in the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms, which were dangerous for her children, she said, and especially for you. She explained to him about the trouble with your blood, sounding out the name for it,
hemophilia
, and holding you in front of her hopefully. Mr. Rejenkins smiled at everything and watched you only vacantly. You might have been some kind of farm dog. Mama said she hoped Mr. Rejenkins would see to these repairs she had mentioned as soon as he could. Mr. Rejenkins smiled and gazed down at his shoes again.
    In the light from the kitchen window the shoessparkled and shone. Mama thought they must be new and he must want someone to praise them, so she paid him a politeness on the subject of new shoes in general. He favored her with a slow wink, as if this were the first word anyone had said since he walked through the door. “These are my Sunday shoes, honey, I’ve had them near two years. My wife she takes real good care of them.” He smiled slowly. “I wished she would take that good a care of everything.”
    Soon after, Papa told Mama over breakfast he thought the fat buzzard took an awful lot of trouble to fix up a shack for fifteen dollars a month rent. Mama said it wasn’t any knowing what people would do. Papa said the house had been sitting empty fifteen years and here all of a sudden he would rent it dirt cheap and then fix it up all nice and pretty by himself. It didn’t make any sense, Papa said. Mama said she could take care of herself. As long as he made the place fit for the family to live in she would put up with him.
    Papa said, almost angrily, maybe she better tell Mr. Rejenkins that her husband would do any fixing there was to be done on this house. Mama asked Papa when did he think he was going to have time to do any fixing? And what did Papa think Mr. Rejenkins was going to try when she had the younguns with her all day long? Papa said younguns won’t going to stop a man that size from doing anything he took a notion to do.
    Mama said, fat as Mr. Rejenkins was, Papa might not be able to stop him either.
    She meant nothing by it. But Papa looked at his arm. Quietly he said, “I can sure before God protect what belongs to me.”
    He finished his breakfast and went to work. Mama listened to the truck drive away and sipped a cup of coffee. Afterward she stood at the window looking at nothing while cars passed