Read Online Falling From Grace by Ann Eriksson - Free Book Online Page B

her.”
    The next day at noon we walked to Sally’s Diner. Mel lurched along on his spider legs, shoulders hunched like a vulture, bracing against an imaginary wind, his hands in his jacket pockets, head topped by the Tilley hat he wore whenever he went out in “the weather,” as he called it. By the time he reached the diner in a parking lot at the edge of the beach, I trailed half a block behind. He waited at a picnic table for me to catch up before we went inside.
    Contrary to what my mother thought, I had dreaded this lunch with Mel since Patrick and Steve related their experience to me one night in the back yard. Their main advice, “Take a book.” But in the back of my mind, I maintained a faint hope my father might one day meet my eyes and ask, “Tell me one important thing about your life.”
    We ordered fish and chips and ate in silence. Mel gazed out the window at the ocean, at his food, around the room. His pale blue eyes flitted behind his glasses from table to table as if searching for old friends who might spirit him away from his predicament, from this odd small person, his daughter. He seemed perpetually restless, unable to settle at a single task, concentrate on another human for enough time to understand we walked and talked and felt emotions. I worried about Patrick, a physical clone of Mel. Would he lose his affable disposition, his social graces? By the time dessert arrived—a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie and ice cream topped with a gritty pink birthday candle he fished out of his pocket and lit with a paper match—I wanted to slink out the door. He did say “Happy Birthday” after I blew out the candle, but the sentiment ended with an upsurge in his voice like a question mark that left a whiff of smoky uncertainty in the air. I dawdled home along the beach and arrived a half hour after Mel. Grace met me at the door. “How’d it go, dear?” she asked. “Dad said you enjoyed yourselves.”
    â€œSure,” I answered, then headed out to the back yard and my refuge, the tree house my brothers had built me when I was seven and that I should have outgrown long ago. “He brought me a candle,” I mumbled as I walked past my mother.
    I looked at Rainbow. She couldn’t put a name to her father, let alone a face or an accusation. “Yes, I have a dad.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œIn Qualicum.”
    â€œI don’t have a dad.”
    â€œEveryone has a dad.”
    â€œI know. About sperms and eggs. Mary says I’m like baby Jesus. He didn’t have a dad.” She took three hops ahead and whirled around. “Mary doesn’t always tell the truth.” She twirled in a circle on one foot. “Is he small too?”
    â€œBaby Jesus?”
    â€œNoooo.” She raised both arms in irritation and let them flop to her sides. “Your dad.”
    â€œHe’s a bit taller than Paul.”
    â€œIs your mom small?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDo you have brothers and sisters?”
    â€œBrothers and they’re not little either. Keep walking.”
    â€œHow did you get small?”
    â€œAn evil fairy godmother put a spell on me. I used to be taller than your mom.”
    She stopped and swung around to face me. “Truly?”
    â€œNo, not truly. I was born this way.”
    â€œYou were a big baby,” she exclaimed.
    â€œI was a little baby. I grew and . . . I stopped.”
    â€œWill I stop too?’
    â€œYou ask too many questions.”
    She ran ahead, bent over to peer between her legs and waddled backward. “How much farther?”
    â€œAbout five minutes.”
    Suddenly, she straightened, turned around, and wailed. Huge sobs wracked her slender body as she shuffled along, head down, shoulders slumped forward.
    Bewildered, I trotted up beside her. “What’s the matter with you?”
    She continued to weep, face hidden in the folds of her sleeve.
    I