Read Online The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi - Free Book Online Page B

“We’ll send you to ask.”
    â€œOh no. You two…you’ll go broke.”
    â€œWhatever money we lose to each other,” he said, “never costs us anything. And even when I’m winning, I want Annie to win too. Not that moment, but soon.”
    â€œFly?” Opal was squirming.
    I stood up, raised her in my arms. “Fly…”
    â€œLotte was like you in the water,” Aunt Stormy said, “a fish.”
    As Opal’s chubby feet kneaded the air above the waves, it came to me that she was not only my sister but also my daughter—links far tighter than either one link by itself—and that, through her, my parents were continuing to live in my arms.
    I raised her higher. “Fly…” Daughter. And pressed my lips against her back. No longer her make-believe mother. But her real mother. Now.
    My daughter giggled.
    Aunt Stormy was digging her toes into the sand, dislodging something.
    â€œWhat did you find?” Mason asked.
    â€œA critter bit?” I asked.
    She bent. Picked up a piece of cartilage attached to a bone and a couple of feathers. “An excellent critter bit.”
    As a child, I’d loved searching with her along the beach for wings and bones and skulls and spines.
    â€œOh dear,” she would say, “those critters have come apart.”
    We’d collect the critter bits, carry them to her cottage, and assemble them with string and wire and nails, creating an animal unlike any other; and when I’d try to breathe life into the bleached bones, I’d feel all-powerful. It was there that my fascination with collages began, with the boldness and conviction that I could resurrect these animals as I envisioned them, or—perhaps—as they were destined to be.
    Mason
    â€”but the moon and the rocks were getting hotter, your breaths faster. And though you and Jake were not touching—not yet, Annie—I saw you together.
    â€œFor Christ’s sakes—Just do it.”
    â€œWill you please quite?” Jake snapped at me. “Please, Mason?”
    That’s when I needed proof. The kind of proof you get by offering people something they claim they don’t want. “If you make love now, I’ll believe it’s not an issue between you, that you’re telling the truth.”
    â€œThat is some fucked logic.” Your voice was so furious, Annie, that I knew I was in for chaos with you, even if I quit now.
    But I couldn’t quit. Because Jake’s wanting of you was so…blatant. It’s not like I invented it, Annie. It was all there, like if often is with him. Like when he throws back his head, or when he positions himself in Aunt Stormy’s hammock just so, as if daring you to touch his jaw to make sure it really is that unbearably smooth.
    â€œJust do it,” I told him.
    â€œI’m getting out of here,” he said.
    And I was so relieved…relieved beyond relieved, Annie…and already pictured myself following Jake from this drowsy and blighted heat…the night cold against our skin and yet already turning into glow…bracing us for that leap into our pond that will conceal our movements.
    But Jake did not get out.
    Jake said, “Quit being such a weird fuck, Mason.”
    But I could see the change in you, Annie. How you and Jake suddenly considered each other’s bodies. Speculated. Forbidden. Like Jake and me at summer camp, Annie, and you finding us on the raft. Forbidden. Scared and turned on and sure he’d kill me if he could.
    That same urgency last night in the sauna. That same urgency this morning in your studio. One collage is not enough, Annie. I used to love being in here with you, the two of us organizing your supplies, arranging your rice papers by thickness, and I’d listen to you think aloud about your next project. Like White on White . The pond in winter. You said it had to do with memory and coldness, and I was awed by how you