Read Online The Barter by Siobhan Adcock - Free Book Online

wagon, she turned and embraced her father again the way she felt she ought to have in the church. She was sorry for him, sorrier by far than she was for herself. What had he raised her for, after all. To keep her dead mother as close to him as he could, for as long as he could, until at last he had to open his fingers and watch her walk toward another.

CHAPTER THREE
    A s Bridget and Julie drive home from the coffee shop, avoiding mommy yoga with Gennie while driving heedlessly into something more terrible by far, Bridget distracts herself by telling Julie a story. Other than imagining the worst that can happen every day all day long, she’s learned that the other main job requirement of motherhood is being able to summon a story on command whenever the occasion demands it.
On your way home to confront a ghost? Not sure you can think straight? Worried that your baby girl can smell the fear rising from your skin like smoke? Time to play Scheherazade. Extemporize.
This, too, seems like a skill from her working life that she’s redeploying in a new way. In fact, when Bridget is short a plot line for a Julie story, she will often borrow one from an old case (heavily tarted up with fantastical objects and locations, since as an estates attorney her cases had not tended toward the entertainment of a baby, or anyone else) or from games Mark has worked on at PlusSign. For an attorney, she has a pretty good imagination, and she’s got something of a knack for magical powers, escape hatches, and talismans, more than a few of which even made their way into some of PlusSign’s early successes, backwhen she and Mark used to talk to each other about work. Or anything much.
    Bridget is pulling into her driveway when her phone begins ringing, and so she parks and answers it, thinking it’s probably Martha buzzing her about the estate case she gives absolutely zero fucks about.
    â€œBridget! Where are you? Class is starting. I thought you were right behind me.” Gennie’s tone is fretful. “Are you okay?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Gennie.” She is extemporizing again, talking fast. “I was partway there and then Julie had this enormous poop—it’s all over her car seat. I had to take her home. I just pulled up, actually.” Bridget has to wonder sometimes where her advanced powers of invention, which some would call
lying
, actually come from. Her father, probably.
    â€œOh God. Good luck with that. Your car seat probably has the removable cushion, right?”
    â€œRight into the washing machine. Serenity now, goddamn it,” Bridget says, and Gennie laughs, because everything Bridget says is funny to Gennie, even if it’s not—just another of Gennie’s gratifying personality traits.
    â€œSee you Friday? You’re still bringing your friend Martha to the cookout this week, right? I can’t wait to meet her.”
    â€œYep. Have good limberness and inward focus. Tell Miles to really work for that shoulder stand.” As she signs off, Gennie is still giggling, which leaves Bridget feeling a bit wistful for Martha after all—she’s harder to amuse. Bridget wouldn’t mind having to work a little harder for the laugh track.
    Sitting in her car in her driveway, the engine ticking and cooling, Bridget feels the familiar conflict arise, feels her breathing accelerate.
Go in. See her. Don’t go in. Don’t see her.
    â€œWhat do you say, Miss Jujubee? Should we go inside?”
    Julie looks expectantly at her mother in the twin mirrors and lets loose her pterodactyl screech.
    Meanwhile, Bridget is still holding her phone. Before she can second-guess herself again, she taps the button for Mark’s work number, hoping to catch him between meetings.
Be there, love. Be there, love. Be there, love.
    Julie squawks. “Ssssssh, baby,” Bridget says, and that is when Mark picks up.
    â€œBridge. What’s up. Everything okay?” His voice is