Read Online Crave by Laurie Jean Cannady - Free Book Online Page A

woman, the one she had stabbed him over when she caught her in our house. But none of that mattered on that snowy morning because I was dead weight, and Champ, only two, was tripping on every bump in the snow, and Dathan, the baby inside, was kickboxing her bladder, her ribs. Momma worried that he too was cold.
    Carl walking right at Momma saw her, but didn’t see her. When he realized it was his wife and children emerging through the fog of snow, he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Momma did not stop. She walked faster, harder, pulling Champ so quickly he left drag marks in the snow. She stood face to face with my father. She didn’t ask where he had been or why he hadn’t come home for days. She just pushed me into his arms and wrapped the blanket tightly around my face. He looked into her eyes, the same eyes he’d promised forever and said, “Lois, take this girl. I’m not going home with you.”
    Momma’s eyes widened, as if they would help her hear better. My father’s mouth was moving, but Momma refused to hear. She focused on the warm breath escaping his mouth, clouding aroundhis face, and the clumps of snow cutting through the haze. The sides of her chapped lips split even as she thought of forming words. But her eyes, like her daddy’s, spoke sentences without words. “Help me get these kids out of the snow, then you can go where you want. You know Laurie just got out of the hospital. Do not leave us now.” This, her eyes said.
    Carl’s eyes were not as vocal, so he shook his head, and rolled his eyes when he didn’t want to see what Momma was saying anymore. She took Champ’s hand and left me in my father’s arms. She walked, pulling Champ behind her, hand massaging the knotted muscles beating in her back. She walked, no intention of looking back. She had said all she had to say. So, she walked, snow crackling against ice, listening for the crunch of my father’s feet behind. She stopped and listened. No crunch, just a crackle. If she could have looked into her own eyes, she would have said, “He is behind you. Even he would not do that.” But the eyes, in her case, couldn’t stop the mind. She turned her head, praying it would not be. She turned her body, still listening for the crunch of two feet. A bundle, still, me, in overstuffed coat, socks on hands, sat in the snow, and there bobbed a retreating figure, crooked almost, vanishing in the haze.
    It had been weeks since my father had seen his wife and children, one year since he’d placed me in the snow. That morning, with the stale taste of vodka coating his teeth, he decided it was time to go home. He swiped his tongue against the inside of his mouth. Clumps of morning mouth-lint stuck to his gums. He contemplated cleaning himself before his visit, but he was the daddy and the husband, so we would take him as he was. He might have reconsidered if he had realized alcohol divided time, which meant what he thought were weeks had actually been months and wives weren’t wives once husbands stopped coming home.
    He was not drunk, but he wished he were. Better to mute Momma cutting her eyes at him when he walked in the door. The last time they spoke, they argued. He couldn’t remember whatthe argument was about, but he knew it had been a good one. Could’ve been about his drinking, his women, or his disappearing. The matter didn’t matter. Her words all sounded the same when libations had lubricated passage. He made his way to the door of the small house on Victory Boulevard, where he believed his wife and children were waiting for him. He didn’t even think to knock on the door. He was a father and husband after all. He turned the knob expecting it to welcome his entry, but his turn met resistance. The ball wiggled loosely in his hand as if avoiding his touch.
    He paused, in that moment realizing how much space was between him and the home he used to have. His