Read Online Mud Girl by Alison Acheson - Free Book Online

trying to un-Velcro his son. “I have a job interview,” Abi says, not quite yelling, but now the boy is howling.
    Jude looks at her. His eyes are round and dark, and he mouths words, but she doesn’t know what he says. Then he’s gone.
    She feels a fury – a frustration so intense – she digs her nails into her hands. But now the boy is at the door reaching for the doorknob. It doesn’t turn.
Jude must be outside, holding it.
    The boy tries again and again, then collapses in tears of defeat. His T -shirt is thin, and she can see his ribs heave with sobs. Outside, Jude’s boots pass over the walkway, quick on the wood.
    She hears movement behind her, and when she turns, she sees Dad looking on, his brow knotted.
    â€œWhat do I do?” she whispers.
Don’t expect an answer.
    â€œSit with him,” Dad says. His voice is gruff: first words of the day.
    She lowers herself slowly to the floor and sits right next to the boy, but doesn’t touch him. She has the feeling that if she does he’ll howl even louder. After a couple of minutes, his sobs begin to subside. Still she doesn’t touch him. She feels frozen, though she finds herself staring at the soft brown of his curly hair and something in her chest feels tight. He moves his head onto her knee and he’s absolutely still, like a rabbit hiding in the brush. Then he shudders, and begins to breathe again.
    Abi looks up to see if Dad is still watching. Imagine that: Dad coming up with how to do something. Who needs advice columnists? Just ask Dad.
Dear Bill Jones…
    He is watching and his hands are fumbling with his glasses. “They sure can wail.”
    â€œEnough to wake you,” she says.
    â€œWho is the little bugger?” Not unkindly.
    â€œHe’s Jude’s.” “Jude?” Dad looks puzzled, but doesn’t seem to want an explanation. He turns back to the TV and changes the channel.
    Abi doesn’t know how long Jude’s boy and she are like that, sitting on the floor, his head on her knee. Time passes – Dad watches an entire sitcom – and the boy sits up.
    â€œShuice!” he whispers.
What?
He goes to the fridge, pulls at the handle. “Shuice!” Now it’s more of a whine.
    â€œWhy didn’t you say so,” and she pours some apple juice into a cup. He says something like “ang” – must mean “thanks” – and tries to pull himself up on a chair. Juice everywhere. That whine starts again. The sound makes her feel like covering her ears and hiding in her room.
    â€œThat’s okay,” she says.
Just stop whining. Please!
She mops up. “This house is very spillable.” That’s probably not something you’re supposed to say to a kid.
    Soon as she opens her mouth, his eyes are on her. She doesn’t know how much he understands, but he listens. She pours a second cup.
    â€œDanma sick,” he says, then gulps his juice.
    â€œD-a-n-m-a,” she repeats. “Of course! GRANDMA !”
    He frowns at her peevishly, as if to say, “That’s what I said!”
    Then, in one movement, he’s down from the table, across the floor and looking out the window. The river.
    â€œI have something for you.” Somewhere around here there’s that old life jacket. There’s a bench by the door. She lifts the seat to look into the box. Gumboots. Was she ever a little kid who walked in the mud holding the hand of that man who spends his days in that chair?
    She scoops out the fluorescent orange vest with its safety collar and loops and buckles. How she’d hated this vest. She always loved to swing her arms when she was little. And she paid for it too, with knuckles bruised on doorways, but she would have settled for those bruises over these straps.
    She pulls open the zipper, and feeds the vest over one of the boy’s arms, around the back, over the other. He doesn’t