Read Online Outside Beauty by Cynthia Kadohata - Free Book Online Page A

mother had said that men cared more about your face than any other part of you. I did not know if that was true. I hoped that someday I would marry a man who cared more about my heart than any other part of me. But I didn’t know if that was possible. Finally, I closed my eyes.
    For the next few days we lived in our apartment with Mack’s sister, Sophie, while doctors performed skin grafts on our mother. Our mother may not have run a normal household, but without her, we went completely native. A couple of days I didn’t even comb my hair. Apparently, Mack was handling Mom’s immediate hospital bills by selling parts of her jewelry collection, because it seemed we had no insurance. Aunt Sophie came over after work every evening around seven, but she was an exhausted woman who usually got in bed by eight. Her mustache was the heaviest I’d ever seen on a woman.

    The week seemed unreal. Each day centered around our visits to the hospital. Our mother grew more depressed as the week progressed. Maddie crawled into bed with me every night, sobbing before she fell asleep while I stared at the ceiling. Her sobs felt like a big weight on my back.
    About a week after our mother’s accident Sophie took me aside before she got ready for bed. “Did he tell you?” she asked me. She sniffed the air repeatedly. I knew her sniffing was just a tic she had.
    â€œHe? He who?”
    â€œMack.”
    â€œTell us what?”
    Sophie waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not important! I shouldn’t be the one to tell you.”
    â€œTell us
what
?”
    â€œYou’re going to stay with your fathers until your mother is well,” she said, raising her head to sniff.
    â€œWhat!” I cried. “Whose idea was this?”
    â€œYour mother’s. I talked to her myself, and she said you girls should get packed immediately.”
    â€œI can’t go live with my father! I hardly know him. I mean, I see him sometimes, but only because my mother makes me.”

    â€œA girl should know her father. This is your chance to find a silver lining.”
    She nodded dejectedly, then went to go to sleep on the couch. She could have slept on our mother’s bed, but she didn’t want to. And she always went up and down the back stairs instead of the front, as if she felt she did not merit going down the front, as if having a mustache went hand in hand with a lowly opinion of yourself. Personally, I would have shaved the mustache. My mother always told us we had to maximize ourselves. I pushed that thought out of my mind to make room in my head. It got pretty crowded in there sometimes.

chapter eight
    â€œOUR FATHERS!” MADDIE CRIED OUT during breakfast. I’d waited until morning to tell the others—I didn’t want to ruin their sleep. “Our fathers?” She set her spoon down and pushed away her cereal bowl. None of us felt much like eating.
    â€œLarry?” said Lakey, unable to disguise her hope.
    â€œMack?” Marilyn said. “I’m going to live with Mack?”
    â€œI hardly even know my father,” I said.
    We all looked at Maddie. The area between her eyebrows had creased into a furrow. I saw that she was about to cry, so I pulled her onto my lap. “Maddie. You’ll be okay. I’ll be in Arkansas too. We can visit each other. We’ll practically be neighbors.”

    Her face lit up. “Do you think?”
    â€œYes, Jiro can drive,” I said. I had met him exactly seven times. I’d counted as I lay in bed last night, completely unable to sleep. Once had been for only an hour and a half and once for a few months when I was little and my mother was having financial problems. The other times he drove up to Chicago to see me. But the last two times I was kind of cold to him, I guess. Not cold exactly, but not warm. And every time he asked me to come visit and I’d say no, I’d feel guilty because I knew he