Read Online Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marisa de los Santos
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the first time something like this has happened.
When the boy turns away from the man, he is Liam again, small in his T-shirt and jeans, shaky, drained of triumph, frightened by his own loss of control. In bed that night, he tells his mother, “I thought the man was bad, but maybe I’m the one who’s bad.” And his mother tells him, “You? No, you are my funny sonny, my curious, story-loving, cookie-sharing boy. That monster, he’s the one who’s bad.” And the boy says, “The monster makes me lonely. I mean he makes me feel alone.” “The monster makes me lonely, too,” his mother says.
Liam and his mother visit a wise woman. In the wordless illustrations that follow, Liam talks, sometimes laughing, sometimes sad, sometimes pressing his face into his mother’s arm, and the woman listens. Then she says, “I’m not a fairy godmother, you know. I don’t have a magic wand, and what a silly thing, to think that magic lives inside a wand!” “It doesn’t?” asks the boy. “Magic lives in here,” the woman says, placing one hand on Liam’s head. “And here,” she tells him, pointing to his heart. “And you are full of it and courage, too.” “Courage?” asks Liam. “I don’t think so. Me?” “Of course,” says the woman. “Now, listen: I think I know a way to get that monster gone .”
Pen read this book for the first time four months after her father died. She was sitting in Pollywogs, her favorite children’s bookstore in Philadelphia, a place to which she had escorted so many writers that she’d become friends with the owner, a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle look-alike named Selena Bass. Selena had invited her to come just after closing to help create some displays of new books.
It was one of Pen’s first ventures out of the apartment for anything other than work since her father had died, and she had walked the whole way there, a long walk. At first, she had almost turned back, shaky and tired, street noise loud in her ears, but after a few blocks, it had felt good to be out, walking among strangers, anonymous. She crossed streets, stopped at corners, shrugged her handbag more securely onto her shoulder, an oddly reassuring movement. On the busy sidewalk, she could have been anyone, someone who was grieving or not, had a father or didn’t. If Selena hadn’t been watching through the door of her shop, Pen might have walked right past it. She might have walked all night.
Inside, the shop was cozy and purple-walled. A former elementary-school teacher, Selena had whipped off freehand, typeface-quality signs with colored Sharpies, each sign featuring a quotation from a famous children’s book (one notable example from Winnie-the-Pooh: “If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear”), while Pen had unpacked picture books, feeling moved and reverential, running a hand over each glossy cover before placing the books on the display shelf of the little backroom reading space called the Cuddle-upreadalotorium.
She was remembering a conversation with her father.
“Here’s what happened: you got fired, then you got discouraged. Who wouldn’t?” he had told her a few days before he died. “Then you started driving the writers around, you and that cute Amelie, and you liked it pretty well, and then you had Augusta, and you went with the flow. Makes sense. But my bet? You’ll be back in front of a classroom one of these days.”
“How do you know?” she’d asked him.
“I know because I know,” he’d answered.
Holding the new books in her hands, she missed teaching kids how to read. She missed having someone know her the way her father had.
Pen didn’t see Will’s name on the front of the book at first. She had been too arrested by the cover: jewel and earth tones soaked in light, looking more like a Vermeer than like any children’s book cover Pen had ever seen, the monster standing with one
When the boy turns away from the man, he is Liam again, small in his T-shirt and jeans, shaky, drained of triumph, frightened by his own loss of control. In bed that night, he tells his mother, “I thought the man was bad, but maybe I’m the one who’s bad.” And his mother tells him, “You? No, you are my funny sonny, my curious, story-loving, cookie-sharing boy. That monster, he’s the one who’s bad.” And the boy says, “The monster makes me lonely. I mean he makes me feel alone.” “The monster makes me lonely, too,” his mother says.
Liam and his mother visit a wise woman. In the wordless illustrations that follow, Liam talks, sometimes laughing, sometimes sad, sometimes pressing his face into his mother’s arm, and the woman listens. Then she says, “I’m not a fairy godmother, you know. I don’t have a magic wand, and what a silly thing, to think that magic lives inside a wand!” “It doesn’t?” asks the boy. “Magic lives in here,” the woman says, placing one hand on Liam’s head. “And here,” she tells him, pointing to his heart. “And you are full of it and courage, too.” “Courage?” asks Liam. “I don’t think so. Me?” “Of course,” says the woman. “Now, listen: I think I know a way to get that monster gone .”
Pen read this book for the first time four months after her father died. She was sitting in Pollywogs, her favorite children’s bookstore in Philadelphia, a place to which she had escorted so many writers that she’d become friends with the owner, a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle look-alike named Selena Bass. Selena had invited her to come just after closing to help create some displays of new books.
It was one of Pen’s first ventures out of the apartment for anything other than work since her father had died, and she had walked the whole way there, a long walk. At first, she had almost turned back, shaky and tired, street noise loud in her ears, but after a few blocks, it had felt good to be out, walking among strangers, anonymous. She crossed streets, stopped at corners, shrugged her handbag more securely onto her shoulder, an oddly reassuring movement. On the busy sidewalk, she could have been anyone, someone who was grieving or not, had a father or didn’t. If Selena hadn’t been watching through the door of her shop, Pen might have walked right past it. She might have walked all night.
Inside, the shop was cozy and purple-walled. A former elementary-school teacher, Selena had whipped off freehand, typeface-quality signs with colored Sharpies, each sign featuring a quotation from a famous children’s book (one notable example from Winnie-the-Pooh: “If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear”), while Pen had unpacked picture books, feeling moved and reverential, running a hand over each glossy cover before placing the books on the display shelf of the little backroom reading space called the Cuddle-upreadalotorium.
She was remembering a conversation with her father.
“Here’s what happened: you got fired, then you got discouraged. Who wouldn’t?” he had told her a few days before he died. “Then you started driving the writers around, you and that cute Amelie, and you liked it pretty well, and then you had Augusta, and you went with the flow. Makes sense. But my bet? You’ll be back in front of a classroom one of these days.”
“How do you know?” she’d asked him.
“I know because I know,” he’d answered.
Holding the new books in her hands, she missed teaching kids how to read. She missed having someone know her the way her father had.
Pen didn’t see Will’s name on the front of the book at first. She had been too arrested by the cover: jewel and earth tones soaked in light, looking more like a Vermeer than like any children’s book cover Pen had ever seen, the monster standing with one
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