Read Online How Loveta Got Her Baby by Nicholas Ruddock - Free Book Online Page B

turned cold, she could see him with his feet up on his desk, and it was always the same: Cabot bread, peanut butter and jam, a thermos of tea—amazing, she thought, the detail she could see through the old telescope, though it had to be tipped this way and that when the reflection of the sky shimmered, totally amazing it was; sometimes, believe it or not, even through her lace curtains, she could read his watch for the time of day and see the rise and fall of his breathing, which often seemed synchronous to her own, and all of this, mind you, through this one small telescope—steady now—all brass, left to her thirteen years before when her husband, John Cluett, fell from the deck of his dragger into Halifax Harbour, weighed down by three sweaters, a woolen overcoat, oilskins, heavy boots, a mortgage of three thousand dollars, and a photo in his wallet of Hilda Cluett, then Hilda Hickey, age twenty-one, out at the barasway, squinting into what must have been a high sun, so unguarded she was.

the house -   
painters
    â€œ HE COULD PAINT houses.”
    â€œClyde?”
    â€œHe could use the money.”
    â€œFor sure.”
    â€œWe could set him up.”
    â€œHe’d need a ladder. Does Clyde go up ladders?”
    â€œNot sure. I’ve seen him on a stepstool.”
    â€œLike in the kitchen?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œHow’d he look?”
    â€œFine. Steady. Mind you it’s not that high.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œHe’d need a hat with a brim.”
    â€œThe brim, it keeps the paint off.”
    â€œThat’s right. Lots of times you look up.”
    â€œHe’d need one of them flat chisels too, for peeling off the old paint.”
    â€œA scraper.”
    â€œThat’s it, start of every job. Scrape the old paint off.”
    â€œThat’s the hard part.”
    â€œToo hard, you ask me.”
    â€œThe rollers for the walls, that’s easy.”
    â€œClyde could do rollers.”
    â€œTrouble is, you can’t use the rollers on clapboard. It’s a bad fit.”
    â€œThat’s the truth. For that you need a brush, the old kind.”
    â€œThe kind with a hand-grip.”
    â€œSo we sets him up with a ladder, a hat with a brim, a brush or two, and a chisel.”
    â€œHe needs an outfit too.”
    â€œLike baggy pants?”
    â€œBaggy pants, baggy shirt, hat with a brim.”
    â€œKeep the T-shirt clean.”
    â€œClyde wears them shirts for days and days.”
    â€œ Save the Great Auk .”
    â€œI’m sick of that one.”
    â€œMe too. Worse shirt ever. I could care less about the Great Auk. It’s a bird, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt was. It’s not anymore.”
    â€œYou know that Clyde, there’s a boy needs too much help. High maintenance, that’s what he is.”
    â€œThem stories he writes? They’re useless for money.”
    â€œI heard that. Never tried it myself.”
    â€œDon’t, is my advice. You’d perish.”
    â€œWriters drink.”
    â€œNot Clyde.”
    â€œTrue enough. Rare you see Clyde with a drink.”
    â€œSo the plan is, we set him up as a housepainter, we teach him how to do it.”
    â€œSounds good. Good to help Clyde out.”
    â€œHow much would he make?”
    â€œCan’t pay him by the hour, he’s way too slow.”
    â€œYou’d go under.”
    â€œFor sure.”
    â€œLet’s think about the best place to start.”
    â€œShea Heights.”
    â€œHamilton Avenue, I’d say.”
    â€œWhy there?”
    â€œWorn-out houses there, lots of them on the hill.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œThis is how it works. You and I, we do the quote. Hamilton Avenue, any old house, there’s one, we stop the truck, turn the wheels into the curb.”
    â€œTurn the wheels?”
    â€œIt’s steep. That way, no runaway vehicles. It’s happened.”
    â€œTo