Read Online Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham - Free Book Online Page B

it,” he said. “It was a whopper.”
    “Is everybody all right?”
    “I guess. Mom and Zoe are in bed.”
    She folded her arms over her breasts and looked up at the stars. Todd would be getting into bed now, wearing only the bottoms of his pajamas. A row of trophies, little gold men with basketballs, would be shining on the shelf above his head like lavish, frozen dreams.
    “Don't be so dramatic,” she said. “Billy, why are you always so dramatic?”
    “Well, things get pretty dramatic. You probably wouldn't be asking that question if you'd been here an hour ago.”
    Slowly, with deep weariness, she walked out onto the grass where Billy stood. “It's a pretty night,” she said.
    “I guess it is,” he answered. “Yeah, I suppose you'd have to call this a pretty one.”
    He was fifteen now, a sophomore, and instead of growing up he seemed to be hardening into some sort of sulky, continuing childhood. He had no interests. He dressed ridiculously, in patched bell-bottoms and flowered, billowing shirts. His only friends were a handful of hippies and hoods who skulked around school like stray cats. Todd was nice enough to Billy, but she knew he didn't really like him. No, that wasn't true. Todd liked everybody. He didn't respect Billy. He thought of him as an oddity, a character. He said, 'He's a real nut, that brother of yours.'
    “What was it all about?” she asked.
    “Does it matter? What does that have to do with anything?” Billy sucked fiercely on the cigarette. His face was all sharp points and blank, empty spaces. Bony thrust of nose and chin, no cheekbones, a mouth that refused to assume any particular shape. His skin was blurred with acne. Susan worried that his unfinished quality might become permanent.
    “Daddy's going through a hard time,” she said. “He has a lot of responsibilities now. I think we have to be patient.”
    “Right,” he said. “You should go in. It's cold out here.”
    “I'm all right. Where did you get that cigarette, anyway?”
    “I do all kinds of things you don't know about. I have a whole other life.”
    She nodded. “Maybe I will go in,” she said. “I'm beat.”
    “Okay.”
    “It's just that he loses control sometimes,” she said. “I think he's getting better. He's trying. We have to be patient.”
    “Have you ever noticed how he never breaks stuff?” Billy said. “I used to think that, too. That he just, you know, lost control. But tonight after the fracas I was looking at that little glass chicken on the windowsill. You know? We've had it as long as I can remember, it's been sitting right out there in plain sight, and he's never touched it. So, you know, lately I've been thinking, it's us he wants to hurt. He knows what he's doing. If he was really out of control, he'd have smashed that chicken a long time ago.”
    “Did he do something to you?”
    “Daddy? Nah. He never laid a hand on me.”
    “Billy. Come over here, in the light.”
    “I'm all right.”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “Just a couple of slaps. Open-handed. They were like kisses.”
    “I want you to come over in the light. I want to look at you.”
    “Forget it,” he said. “I'm really okay. I just want to tell you one thing.”
    “What?”
    “I'm going to kill him one day, and when I do, I don't want people going around saying I lost control. Okay? When I kill him I'm not going to hurt anybody else, I'm not going to break anything. But still. I want it to be clear. I want you to say you stood out here with me one night and I told you I was going to kill him. Only him. Nobody else. Will you do that? Will you do that for me?”
    She hugged her arms more tightly over her breasts. “You are so stupid,” she said. “I wonder sometimes if you know how stupid you are.”
    Susan lay on her bed with the light off. Pink daisies swirled darkly on her wallpaper. When she heard the sound of her father's car she got up, put her robe on, and went downstairs. On her way into the kitchen she