Read Online Love and Other Natural Disasters by Holly Shumas - Free Book Online
Authors: Holly Shumas
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with you."
It was just what I wanted to hear,
and that's why I hung up.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My brother, Charlie, would have
been a witness to the Thanksgiving festivities, but he'd canceled his trip at
the last minute. He said it was because he'd like us to have more alone time,
not so many people around, and since he wasn't working, he could come up any
weekend. My mother let slip that one of his friends was having a party that was
supposed to go all weekend, a " rager " that
had the potential to be "historic." I should have been insulted, but
I knew it was just Charlie. Besides, it was better this way: I wouldn't have
wanted him to learn about the affair when Jon was within swinging distance.
Sometimes it was hard to believe I
was only four years older than Charlie. My mother has a story she likes to tell
about how when I learned she was pregnant, I marched around the house for days
shouting, "I'm a big sister now!" and insisted she throw out all my
childish accoutrements. Since she couldn't afford to buy it all again, she just
hid it. But my point had been made. I took big sisterhood seriously.
Even as a kid, I could set limits
and hold them in a way my mother never could. I always knew my mother loved us
a lot, but it seemed like no one had ever told her that it's better to stand
firm and be wrong sometimes than to buckle at the first sign of resistance.
Sometimes when I was a teenager, I would tell my mother she was undermining my
authority with Charlie, and I wasn't kidding. "I said no parties on school
nights!" I would say to her, alter she'd told Charlie he could go
"just this once." He'd come home drunk and puking when he was
fourteen and my mother would just shrug as if to say, "Kids! What are you
going to do?"
My mother barely graduated high
school and she'd always had low-paying jobs, so you would have thought she'd
encourage us to excel in school. But she thought C's were good enough.
"Just graduate," she'd say. "I'll love you no matter what."
It infuriated me. She seemed to have
no standards: not for her kids, not for the men she dated, not for herself. It
was a deadly combination, having no bullshit detector and no backbone.
I was bent on going to Berkeley
from the time I was twelve, and while it wasn't too hard to be valedictorian at
our neighborhood school, I spent most of my time studying and reading anything
I could get my hands on while wearing black, listening to punk music, and
dreaming of the days when I'd be understood. Charlie's organizing principle was
fun, and his world was filled with friends, sex, pot, and speed metal. I
believed that nothing worthwhile comes easy or cheap, and sometimes it just
never comes at all, no matter what we do. By turns, I was a nihilist, a
fatalist, a Marxist—but never an optimist. Charlie believed it would all work
out for him in the end, and if it didn't, well, at least he'd loved the ride.
Sometimes he frustrated me; sometimes I envied him; but I loved him ferociously
from the first time I held him, as he lay swaddled in the receiving blanket
that had been mine.
When Charlie called later that
night, I knew he'd been tipped off by my mother. "Hey there, Evie ," he said. "What's up?"
I had to laugh at his false
casualness. "Oh, not too much. It's just another dull Thanksgiving
weekend."
"You want to talk about
it?" he asked.
I sighed. "I've spent a lot of
time talking. And I don't seem to be getting any closer to forgiving Jon."
"Why should you forgive him?
He cheated on you when you're about to have his kid. The guy's scum."
Sometimes the simplicity of
Charlie's world view was refreshing; I wasn't sure if this was one of those
times. "But that means the father of my kids is scum."
"Our fathers are scum, and we
did all right."
He was using a pretty liberal
interpretation of "all right." I mean, Charlie was twenty-six, living
back at home with my mother because he'd lost yet another job, and seemed to
have no future direction at all. And let's not get
It was just what I wanted to hear,
and that's why I hung up.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My brother, Charlie, would have
been a witness to the Thanksgiving festivities, but he'd canceled his trip at
the last minute. He said it was because he'd like us to have more alone time,
not so many people around, and since he wasn't working, he could come up any
weekend. My mother let slip that one of his friends was having a party that was
supposed to go all weekend, a " rager " that
had the potential to be "historic." I should have been insulted, but
I knew it was just Charlie. Besides, it was better this way: I wouldn't have
wanted him to learn about the affair when Jon was within swinging distance.
Sometimes it was hard to believe I
was only four years older than Charlie. My mother has a story she likes to tell
about how when I learned she was pregnant, I marched around the house for days
shouting, "I'm a big sister now!" and insisted she throw out all my
childish accoutrements. Since she couldn't afford to buy it all again, she just
hid it. But my point had been made. I took big sisterhood seriously.
Even as a kid, I could set limits
and hold them in a way my mother never could. I always knew my mother loved us
a lot, but it seemed like no one had ever told her that it's better to stand
firm and be wrong sometimes than to buckle at the first sign of resistance.
Sometimes when I was a teenager, I would tell my mother she was undermining my
authority with Charlie, and I wasn't kidding. "I said no parties on school
nights!" I would say to her, alter she'd told Charlie he could go
"just this once." He'd come home drunk and puking when he was
fourteen and my mother would just shrug as if to say, "Kids! What are you
going to do?"
My mother barely graduated high
school and she'd always had low-paying jobs, so you would have thought she'd
encourage us to excel in school. But she thought C's were good enough.
"Just graduate," she'd say. "I'll love you no matter what."
It infuriated me. She seemed to have
no standards: not for her kids, not for the men she dated, not for herself. It
was a deadly combination, having no bullshit detector and no backbone.
I was bent on going to Berkeley
from the time I was twelve, and while it wasn't too hard to be valedictorian at
our neighborhood school, I spent most of my time studying and reading anything
I could get my hands on while wearing black, listening to punk music, and
dreaming of the days when I'd be understood. Charlie's organizing principle was
fun, and his world was filled with friends, sex, pot, and speed metal. I
believed that nothing worthwhile comes easy or cheap, and sometimes it just
never comes at all, no matter what we do. By turns, I was a nihilist, a
fatalist, a Marxist—but never an optimist. Charlie believed it would all work
out for him in the end, and if it didn't, well, at least he'd loved the ride.
Sometimes he frustrated me; sometimes I envied him; but I loved him ferociously
from the first time I held him, as he lay swaddled in the receiving blanket
that had been mine.
When Charlie called later that
night, I knew he'd been tipped off by my mother. "Hey there, Evie ," he said. "What's up?"
I had to laugh at his false
casualness. "Oh, not too much. It's just another dull Thanksgiving
weekend."
"You want to talk about
it?" he asked.
I sighed. "I've spent a lot of
time talking. And I don't seem to be getting any closer to forgiving Jon."
"Why should you forgive him?
He cheated on you when you're about to have his kid. The guy's scum."
Sometimes the simplicity of
Charlie's world view was refreshing; I wasn't sure if this was one of those
times. "But that means the father of my kids is scum."
"Our fathers are scum, and we
did all right."
He was using a pretty liberal
interpretation of "all right." I mean, Charlie was twenty-six, living
back at home with my mother because he'd lost yet another job, and seemed to
have no future direction at all. And let's not get
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