Read Online A Boy of Good Breeding by Miriam Toews - Free Book Online Page A

her.”
    “Yeah, shhh, I know. I know. Actually I think he just wanted to leave. He couldn’t deal with it. I don’t think he ever listened to his mom.”
    “Oh, so he’s Leonard Cohen all of a sudden, moping around Europe in a big black coat all grim and sad-faced because it’s what he has to do? Gimme a break. So now you’re just gonna forgive him and let him see S.F. and waltz right back into your life, just like that? Have some self-respect, for Pete’s sake, Knute.”
    “Yeah, but what about S.F.? He is her father, after all. If he wants to see her, shouldn’t I let him? Just because he’s a moron doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want to see him, right? She knows about him and everything. I mean, she can decide later if she hates him enough never to see him again. I can’t really decide that for her, you know.”
    “Why not? Lots of parents do that. If you think she’s better off without him in her life, then that’s that. You decide.”
    “Well, you let Ron see Josh even though Ron’s an idiot.”
    “Yeah, but he pays me, Knute. You know, child support? I’m forced to let him see Josh.”
    “But don’t you think you’d want Josh to know Ron even if he wasn’t paying you?”
    “Absolutely not. Ron’s a twit. Josh can do better than him for a father.”
    “Well, Marilyn, that doesn’t make any sense. He
is
his father.
You’re
the one who could have done better than him fora boyfriend. There’s nothing you can do about him being Josh’s dad. And just because he’s a twit doesn’t mean Josh doesn’t like him.”
    “Hmm, I don’t know, Knute. You know what I think? I think you’re still hot for Max.”
    “Wrong-o.”
    “You are! I can tell. I can always tell. You definitely are still hot for Mighty Max.”
    “Oh God, Marilyn. I don’t even
know
him anymore.”
    “Yeah? So what’s your point? Welcome to—”
    S.F. came into the bathroom and asked if she could join Knute in the tub. Marilyn heard S.F. asking and said, “Oh God, don’t you hate that?”
    “Yeah. I have to add more cold. Okay, I gotta go.”
    “You know what you have to do, Knute?” said Marilyn.
    “What.”
    “You have to learn how to make pudding. It says on the box you have to stir constantly,
constantly
, and it takes a good twenty or thirty minutes before the stuff boils. So if S.F. is bugging you, you know, asking for this and that, you say, Sorry ma’am, do you want pudding or not? I cannot leave this pudding for a second.”
    “Yeah?” said Knute.
    “Yeah,” said Marilyn, “it’s great. I make tons of pudding, and while I stir I read. Thin, light books ’cause you only have one hand to hold ’em. Josh can’t do a thing about it, so he actually amuses himself and I get a decent break. All hell can break loose around me. I don’t care, I’m making pudding.”
    “That’s a great idea, Marilyn,” said Knute. “What happens when he gets sick of pudding?”
    “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll think of something when that time comes, though. Something less fattening.”
    “Yeah. Marilyn, you have to come and visit me here soon, okay?”
    “Definitely,” said Marilyn, and they put off saying good-bye for a while and then eventually hung up.
    That night just before Knute went to bed she watched S.F. sleep. A strand of hair was stuck in her mouth. Knute removed it. S.F. put it back in. She was beautiful. An angel made in heaven, as Combine Jo had said. God, thought Knute, that woman was S.F.’s paternal grandmother! Not that it mattered. In Knute’s opinion, Combine Jo was more interested in her next drink and her piles of money than she was in S.F. Or even Max.
    Dory had told Knute, when she was pregnant with S.F., that Combine Jo hadn’t always been the way she was now. Years and years ago, she had been the wife of the wealthiest farmer in Algren. She had been beautiful and serene. Before Max was even a year old, she had had an affair with a farmer from Whithers. One stormy