Read Online The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins - Free Book Online

daughter. Queens is the most solidly middle-class and residential of the five boroughs. Well, okay, of the four boroughs at least, because no one really counts Staten Island, except the people who live there. And sometimes, not even them. Queens is a place where people are civic-minded, and entirely without pretense, where the neighborhoods are proud and distinct. It’s the I-don’t-give-a-shit borough. It’s not trying to be cool. It’s not trying to be anything. It has terrific ethnic food, large, crowded parks, and decent, affordable square footage. People here have grass—not enough to own a lawn mower or anything, but still, authentic green grass that they grow in neat little squares behind their rows of brick two-family homes. My childhood here was happy and wholesome, and that’s what I want for my kid.
    Emma and I round the corner and pass a neighbor we don’t know, who’s busy sticking bat decals in her windows for Halloween. She already has a veritable gang of scarecrows stuck to her front door, and it’s not even October yet. She was probably friends with my mom before the big move. She pauses in her window and waves out at us. That confirms it: crazy. I wave back and hurry on.
    “The market closes at four on Thursdays,” I say to Emma, reaching into my pocket to check the time on my phone. “It’s already three thirty-two. Think we can make it?”
    Emma stares at me.
    “I can’t wait until you can talk. I’ll probably have to stop cursing before then.”
    Sometimes when you say this sort of thing out loud in front of other grown-ups, they tell you not to wish the precious babytime away, and then you have to restrain yourself from punching them in the throat. So it’s best just to whisper it to Emma when no one else is around. The phone in my hand rings, and I fumble it, almost drop it. Leo.
    “Hello?”
    “HONEY!”
    Oh my God, what is he so happy about?
    “Hi.”
    “How are my two girls?” he says.
    “Fine, we’re good. We’re out walking to the Amish market so I can make us a real meal tonight.” We’ve been ordering in, gigantic fried sandwiches with waffle fries, Chinese food, and even Tex-Mex “salads” in edible bowls. Extra ranch dressing, please. My inner foodie shudders.
    “Oooh, honey.” I can hear him making a sort of sucking-air-through-his-teeth sound that usually indicates news he’s reluctant to share.
    “What?” I say.
    “Yeah, it’s just that I’m not gonna be able to get out of work tonight. The restaurant is slammed.”
    I stop walking.
    “You what?” I ask.
    “We have a full house, and I just don’t think Mario is ready for a full dinner service without me.”
    “Oh.”
    Mario is Leo’s dinner sous-chef, and he’s been at the restaurant for almost two years, but according to Leo, he’ll never be ready to run the kitchen alone. Leo is so busy with the business side of the restaurant that he hardly even cooks anymore, but he just can’t let go of that kitchen. Real tears spring to my eyes, and my nose starts that wet, swelling feeling. It’s a horrible admission, but I actually count the hours that Leo is away from the house, and that’s not hyperbole. I literally count them:
four hours to go. Three hours to go. Okay, just two hours to go now, I can do this.
I’m lonely without Drew Carey for company, but when Leo’s home, it’s completely different. I watch him with Emma and I feel
happy,
like the decisions we made were the right ones. When he’s home I don’t even remember the deserted panic of these empty afternoons. It’s like I have revolving brains, each one amnesiac of the other.
    “I won’t be too late. I’ll get out of here as soon as the first wave is over, once Mario finds a good rhythm,” he says. “I’m just nervous about business here now that you’re not working. We’re relying on the restaurant income more than ever.”
    I feel sick to my stomach, like a tightrope walker watching the safety net collapse. I’m not