Read Online Stones for Bread by Christa Parrish - Free Book Online Page A

mouthful of Bubble Yum I cough to the ground while swinging in the play yard at recess. When I find it, only bits of pink gum show through the grit and grass, and no amount of rinsing in the water fountain can clean it. Only bits of my mother show through the sadness. I can’t imagine the ocean any more effective than the fountain at school.
    So I stay home for two weeks with Great-Aunt Mary. She cooks brown meat for every supper—liver and dry London broil and crumbled hamburger pie—and tries to help me with my homework the one time I ask if she knows the secret to adding fractions. Shedoesn’t, but tries valiantly to understand the model problems in my textbook before writing a note to Mr. Sanchez explaining my home situation and asking him to please give me extra tutoring. Otherwise, she watches her game shows and eats pudding desserts and tells me to go to bed at eight thirty.
    My mother seems plumper and happier when they come home. I expect gifts from the seashore, a jar filled with sand and shells and dehydrated starfish, or a box of saltwater taffy. My father hands me a bag of hotel toiletries, shampoo and soap and lotion and a plastic shower cap. Mother hugs me against her neck until I can’t breathe; her body trembles next to my own. You know I love you , she whispers.
    Oh yes .
    Promise me you won’t forget .
    My eyes flick to my father. He smiles tightly, takes my mother’s arm. Why don’t you lie down, Claudia? It was a long drive. I’ll be up in a moment .
    She lifts the small case at her feet and carries it up the stairs with her; something rattles inside with each step. My father smoothes my hair, one of his bony, long hands positioned on each side of my part, sliding them down to my ears once, twice, and then giving a little tug on the ends. Don’t worry. The doctor gave her some new medicine. To make her feel better. It will be all right now .
    Doctor? I thought you were at the beach .
    He opens his mouth in response, but my mother’s voice creeps down to us. Alistair?
    Coming .
    He twitches, as if he wants to come to me once more, but the floorboards creak above our heads and he’s upstairs in seconds. My parents’ bedroom door closes.
    I stand on the edge of the living room rug, a braided wool island in the center of my mother’s most loved pine plank floors, and listen. Only the trees talk to me, thin fingers tapping the panes on the eastside of the house. I dump the toiletries onto the couch, peel my jeans off, and sit, legs straight out. Thigh to toe, I squeeze one long line of lotion down each leg. Then another, though I get only over my second knee before the bottle empties, spitting a blob on the nappy fabric of the sofa. Mayonnaise . My hands are knives. I spread the cool cream over my skin. Slick. White. I’m a ghost; maybe no one will see me.
    I smack my legs, the sting snappier because of the lotion. I hit myself again and again, harder each time, the moisturizer thinning and opening to show speckled red below.
    And then I slap my face.
    I’m stunned. My cheek radiates heat, buzzing like a neon sign. Bright, dim, bright. Dim. Fading. I try to hit myself again but cannot seem to make my hand apply the same amount of force as the first time, my body protecting itself.
    A door opening upstairs. I pull on my pants and wipe my fingers on the top of the couch cushion, flipping it over to hide the stain.

    Xavier knows about the television show when I find him the next morning, already pulling baguettes from the oven. I reach for a basket to help, banging my hip on the corner of the counter. “Ow.”
    “Slow down, dear one,” he says, swinging the peel with grace through the air and sliding the hot loaves into the basket on his own. They stand perfectly at attention, thin pointed sentinels of wheat. “Save some of that enthusiasm for Mr. Scott.”
    “Ha-ha.”
    I rub my hip and, turning from Xavier, lift the corner of my shirt and peer down my jeans. A bruise greets me, puffed up