Read Online The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life by Camilla Gibb - Free Book Online Page A

carpet. Oliver’s handwriting, and on the reverse, the CN Tower and the words “Greetings from Toronto” emblazoned in red on the blue sky above.
    â€œI can’t make it out, Blue,” Emma shook her head. “Something about the beach. I don’t know,” she said, passing it to her brother.
    â€œYeah,” he nodded.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe beach. And this says, ‘In case,’ and he signs it ‘Take care.’ ”
    â€œTake care? Is that all he says? How are we supposed to do that?”
    â€œI don’t know, Em. At least he sent a postcard.”
    â€œYeah, well big fucking deal. So he’s moved to Toronto to have a whole new life. Thanks for letting us know.”
    A condo on the beach, a car, a dental plan, maybe even a cleaning lady, Emma thought. And we’re stuck here in this crappy town with no money and no dad. How could he just go and dump us like this? He could at least give Mum some money for child support. But the realquestion underlying her anger was the one she kept asking Blue: “Why does he come and see you but not me?”
    â€œYou’re going to have to ask himself yourself, Em,” Blue said. It wasn’t as simple as she seemed to think it was. It wasn’t pleasant seeing Oliver. It was ugly, sad, and strange: it caused gut rot so painful that it felt like someone was rubbing the insides of his intestines down with sandpaper.
    â€œFucking bastard,” she said angrily. “I don’t want you to tell me when you see him any more, okay, Blue?”
    â€œSure. Whatever.”
    â€œYou know what I mean?” she said in lieu of saying: because it hurts too much. She didn’t know what parents were really good for, but they were at least supposed to be around. Without contact, without even the desire for contact, you might as well forfeit the title. If Oliver was no longer technically a father to her, then she was no longer technically his daughter. It was simple. It was logical. It was impossible. She would fell the remaining stumps in the landscape of the familiar, Elaine largest among them, unearth her butchered roots and pack them into a knapsack. She’d carry herself over some mountain and fall into the depths of some thick, foreign forest, where the trees had stood tall and firmly rooted for generations. She would attach herself like lichen on a host.
    She thought Blue was with her there, same soil and roots. But Oliver had been like glue between them. In his presence, they had shared a problem, but in his absence, while they shared certain memories, they shared increasingly less experience. The glue had begun to loosen, unhinging a static photograph of them as identical twins.
    â€œI guess so,” Blue shrugged. He didn’t see new forests though. He saw the sad image of his sister standing at a distance, giving a lamewave and a weak smile as she abandoned the sinking ship that was family as they had once and only known it. “I guess so,” he repeated, as he stood there alone on the deck, the only remaining child left on board. Elaine didn’t want to know; now Emma, too, wanted to be left out of it. His job would be to continue to hold on for life; keep his bruised feet rooted on a bloodied and precariously tilted deck, carry on through the icefields and into the depths until he saw Elaine to safety, and could give Oliver a respectable burial at sea. Emma would just have to learn to be a good swimmer. There wasn’t much else he could do.

Boys and Girls
    On her first day of high school, Emma showed up with her formerly auburn hair dyed black, and wore a corset that suffocated her under her baggy, patchwork overalls. When they did roll call in homeroom that morning, Emma didn’t answer. She had decided that life would be different from now on. In high school she would be an altogether different person with an unpronounceable name and a mysterious past. Tabatha had been a