Read Online Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward - Free Book Online Page B

brushing a twig from her hair. The man moved toward her, his feet making crunching sounds in the grass. Karen knelt to fold up the blanket. She would hitch a ride home. The flowers would buy her another week with Ellen. Another day, at least. She needed sweet sleep.
    When the man’s fist hit her cheek, it was a complete surprise. The gun was in his hand, and the force knocked her to the ground. He straddled her. “Give me my money back, whore,” he said, his lip curling. Karen put her hand to her cheek. There was blood. The man pressed the gun to her temple.
    “In my jeans,” said Karen. Her voice was surprisingly even.
    He heaved off her, watched her put her hand into her pocket. She kicked him in the groin as hard as she could, her bony knee in the softest flesh. He cried out, loosened his hold on the gun, and she grabbed it. She shot him in the face, she shot him in the heart. It was too much. It was enough. She shot him again and again and then she took the ring from his finger and she ran.
    Ellen was sitting up in bed, playing solitaire. “What happened?” she said, when Karen arrived.
    “Nothing.”
    Karen went into the bathroom, rinsed her clothes. There was not too much blood on them. She stood under a hot shower and lathered herself with the cheap motel soap.
    When she climbed into bed, the sheets smelled like Ellen. Karen put her head on Ellen’s belly, hiding the throbbing, bruised cheek. “I love you,” she said.
    “I know,” said Ellen. Her fingers played with Karen’s hair.
    “Happy birthday,” said Karen. She opened her hand.
    “A ring!” said Ellen, “It’s gold! Where did you get it?”
    “Is it good?” said Karen.
    Ellen slipped it on her finger. It was huge, and it shone in the lamplight. “It’s perfect,” she said. The next day, she would buy a length of leather cord and wear the ring around her neck, nestled between her clavicle bones.
    Karen had closed her eyes then, but before she drifted into the deepest sleep, she thought, This is it. The beginning of the end.
    When Karen gets back to her cell from the Medical Center, the area around the patio is strewn with toilet paper. There are buckets filled with Tang and broken-up candy bars arranged on paper plates. There are tubs of ice cream, melting quickly. (They can order ice cream from the commissary, but have to eat it right away: they have no refrigerator, let alone a freezer.) In the middle of the table is a honeybun, a sliver of cardboard made to look like a candle stuck deep in its frosting. There is also a piece of paper.
    Karen unfolds the paper. It says, “Happy Birthday from The Girls” in fancy writing, and then there is a picture of a daisy. Karen turns around, and they are all looking at her. Tiffany claps her hands. She is smiling so widely that Karen can’t help but smile too. Even Jackie has stopped scowling.
    Veronica points with a long fingernail. “I drew the card,” she says. Sharleen is watching from her cell, standing with her hands around the bars. A few steps, and she could join them. Karen feels a welling inside her, hot and sweet. She leans in, holds her arms out, and for a moment, they hold each other, the girls.

franny
    I nstead of getting married, Franny flew to Waco, Texas. She felt like a bad country song. She left JFK, an airport filled with sleek women dressed in black, and arrived in Waco surrounded by men in Stetson hats. She leaned against the wall of the airport under a poster of a longhorn bull and watched the bags turn lazily on the carousel: camouflage duffel, red Samsonite suitcase, cardboard box tied with twine. There was a poster on the wall that read “Visit Gatestown: The Spur Capital of the World!”
    Finally, Franny’s bag came around, and she grabbed it and headed outside. The electric door slid open and the heat seared Franny’s lungs. The air was swampy heat, a marshy bath. The smell was barbecue smoke, truck exhaust, cow manure, and dust. It was scorched earth and cheap