Read Online Every Single Second by Tricia Springstubb - Free Book Online

lunch, and as he sat in the sunshine, the beer went right to his head. Looking around, he knew he’d be the first man in the family to escape working in a graveyard.
    It was the best he’d ever felt in his entire life.
    Dad fell asleep on the grass, and when he woke up, his buddies were gone. Had he dreamed the whole thing? He dug in his pocket, and pulled out the letter. Real. It was real.
    Something else was in his pocket, too. The keys toNonni and PopPop’s enormous Buick LeSabre. Dad had driven Nonni to her doctor’s appointment the day before and still had the spare set of keys.
    Nonni. Dad needed to do something to show how much he loved and appreciated her. He’d get her chocolate. No, flowers. No, he’d drive up the hill to that fancy grocery store and get her persimmons. Nonni loved to tell about the persimmon tree that grew behind their house in Italy. She and her brother, Carlo, would climb up, spoons between their teeth, and gobble the luscious fruit till their bellies burst.
    Sitting at the kitchen table now, Nella nodded. She’d heard about that persimmon tree.
    Dad had no business driving, after all that beer. But he’d gotten it in his head to buy Nonni persimmons, and from now on, he was going to have whatever he wanted. King of the World.
    It wasn’t persimmon season. He went to three or four stores before he gave up and bought artichokes. A whole boxful.
    “Nonni hates artichokes,” Nella said. Her great-grandmother refused to even look at the things. “They make her sick.”
    “Before,” he said. “Before, she loved them.”
    The clock hushed.
    Dad didn’t remember driving back from the store. By then, he could hardly keep his eyes open. Maybe he nodded off for a second—he’d never be sure. That enormous tank of a car, hurtling down the hill.
    “All I remember is something white.” He jerked his head sideways, like he’d suddenly seen it again. “Pure white, like a snowflake. Like a white pinwheel. It blinded me. For a split second, it was the only thing I could see. And then, gone. It was gone.”
    His eyes met Nella’s. Then he quickly looked up at the clock.
    “She’d made her First Communion that morning. She and her family were coming out of Mama Gemma’s, where they’d gone to celebrate.”
    There was a thin smear of jelly on the fake lace tablecloth. Nella’s head swam. On her own First Communion day, he couldn’t get out of bed. He couldn’t even look at her in her white dress. Her father stared hard at the clock, like he was trying to make the hands go backward.
    “They could’ve stayed in the restaurant a little longer. Or left earlier.” He shoved back his chair. “I could’ve put the car keys back, instead of believing I could have whatever I wanted.”
    Dad went to the sink and stood there a long moment.
    “I did two years,” he said, his back to her. “The judge wenteasy on me, since I was an honor student with no record.” He picked up the wrench and put it back down. “Nonni came to see me every single Sunday. She never missed.”
    Nella could picture her: straight-backed, grim-faced. A match for the toughest prison guard.
    “She never blamed me, not once. She asked me what happened and I told her, and we never talked about it again. Even when PopPop died, six months later. They’ve proven it’s true—people really can die of a broken heart.”
    Nella traced the pattern of the plastic lace with one finger, over and over. Where had her own heart gone? She couldn’t feel it inside her anymore.
    “You know she never learned to drive. After he died, she had to take three buses to come see me, but she never missed. I watched her grow old right before my eyes, Nella. I felt like I was killing somebody else, only this time in slow motion.”
    Dad stared out the window over the sink.
    “The first Sunday after I got out, she dragged me to Mass. I wasn’t ready to face people, but she made me. Somebody must’ve said something behind my back. Next thing