Read Online Homesick Creek by Diane Hammond - Free Book Online

there in person. I’ve been getting ready.”
    Usually Doreen didn’t get dressed until late afternoon anymore. Sometimes she didn’t get dressed at all. Whenever Anita brought it up, Doreen just said what difference did it make when no one looked at her anymore anyway. Anita had to admit she had a point, but it wasn’t healthy all the same.
    “Do you want me to come down there with you?” Anita asked.
    “No. I called Teresa, and she said she’d go.” Teresa was Doreen’s best friend. She was three months pregnant with her second baby.
    “How’s she feeling?”
    “Like hell. You should see her, she’s already gained fifteen pounds,” Doreen said with satisfaction.
    Crystal came back dragging Mister Bear, a filthy teddy bear with a bow tie, checked vest, big feet, and one eye. For the last four months she had refused to go anywhere without him.
    Anita picked up the shopping bag with Crystal’s clothes. Crystal struggled into her pink plastic Barbie raincoat. Anita reached down to do up the zipper, but Crystal pushed her hands away.
    “I can do it,” she said, and with infinite care zipped up the zipper all by herself.
    “Well, I’ll be,” Anita said. “When did you learn to do that, hon?”
    Crystal slipped a sticky hand into Anita’s hand. Anita turned to Doreen and said, “Call me when you know something.” She gave her daughter a strong one-armed hug. “Love you, baby.”
    “Yeah, you too,” said Doreen.
    Anita buckled Crystal into the passenger seat, working around Mister Bear, and piloted Dooley’s little car back onto Highway 101, feeling the gift of a tailwind for the first time all day.
    “You okay, honey?” she asked, reaching over and patting Crystal’s leg.
    “Yes,” Crystal said gravely. Anita wondered how much she understood of what went on around her. More than any of them gave her credit for, probably. Doreen didn’t watch her mouth around Crystal enough, and neither did Danny; the child was growing up in the cracks and margins of the lives of other people who were needier than she was. It shouldn’t be like that. In Anita’s opinion, it took a certain amount of joy to raise a child right, just the same as it took vitamins and milk and warm clothes and kindness. Anita and Bob had had that once, when Doreen and Patrick were little and it looked like Bob was going to make something of himself in auto mechanics, maybe even have a shop of his own one day. Doreen and Danny had never generated joy in any amount, from what Anita could see.
    “What did you do today, honey?” Anita asked Crystal, preferring to fill the car with talk rather than with bitter thoughts.
    “We watched TV. ”
    “
Sesame Street
?”
    “The Home Shopping Channel.”
    Anita glanced over. Crystal continued to gaze out the window solemnly, looking tiny even in the Subaru’s small bucket seat. Anita probably should have gotten Crystal’s booster seat from Doreen, but she hadn’t thought of it. “Did Mommy buy anything?”
    “She wanted to, but her car was rejected.”
    “What?”
    “Mommy said her fucking credit car was rejected.”
    “Oh.”
    “She cried,” Crystal said.
    “Aw, honey.” Anita found her hand and squeezed it. “It was a sad day at home today, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, you’ll just have to let Grammy read you some stories and maybe you can color a nice new picture for us to put on the refrigerator door.”
    “Will Daddy come home soon?”
    “I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll just have to wait and see. Mommy’s going to find out.”
    “Yes.” Crystal nodded. She knew about waiting. She’d spent a lot of her young life waiting in the Adult and Family Services office for shots, waiting for Danny or Doreen or someone to come get her at Head Start over in Sawyer; waiting for someone to notice that none of her clothes fit; waiting for someone to give her steel teeth. What kind of life was that?
    “Will Granddad be there?” Crystal asked.
    “I don’t know. He could