never had. Kit is the lone female in the history of the Ferranti family who could only have one child. Who has a hysterectomy with the first baby? As if that was her fault. No one on her mother’s or her father’s side of the family will ever own up to throwing out a bad reproductive gene.
The room Kit shares with her husband actually makes her laugh every time she walks through the bedroom door. Both she and Peter were sticklers for neatness when Sarah was growing up, and now their room looks like it belongs to a college freshman who has just figured out Mom isn’t going to make her put away discarded clothes.
“Underwear on the floor. Check. Bed never made. Check. Mismatched socks lying in all four corners. Check. Platters with food on them all over the place. Check.” That was the last conversation she had with Peter the one night last week when they managed to go to bed at the same time.
His work schedule is a mess, but Kit sometimes feels like no one really wants to be in the same room with her anyway. She’s thinking maybe they would all like her again if she did change her name back to Agnes. Her birth family has all but disowned her since she went after Mark with the wine bottle.
Thinking about it still makes her a little crazy. That son of a bitch. He can get angry and say things, but I can’t . Kit knows that words can be bigger and better weapons than broken bottles, but she lashed out with the bottle. Her tongue, and the cascade of words and truths that would pour out if she could be honest, would make her wounded brother bleed to death on the spot.
Six months. That’s how long Kit sat with their mother. One hundred and eighty-five nights of hell. The tubes and the medicine and her mother crying in her sleep, what little sleep she had, and Kate lying on an old camping air mattress on the floor with her hand tucked under the blankets so that she could feel a pulse, touch her mother’s skin, make certain she was there when her mother needed her the most.
She is the only daughter, so there was no question that it would be her. It was always her. Kit suspended her life, while her brothers, always the heroes, came and went, and it was as if she had stepped back in time.
She cooked and cleaned and handed them drinks, and then Kit rolled her mother on her side and cleaned the sheets and emptied the bedpan. The boys arrived like glorious gods and then drove off to their nice beds and families every night, and that son of a bitch Mark—was she doing enough, was she there when Ma took her last breath, did she have her pain meds, did she really do everything she could? Who the hell wouldn’t snap?
Now there is this ridiculous court-mandated anger crap. Anger is like the middle name of her entire family. Agnes Anger Ferranti. Mark Anger Ferranti. John Anger Ferranti. Luke Anger Ferranti. Matthew Anger Ferranti. All the sweet apostles and one saint. Why she ever kept her last name when she married is now a mystery to Kit.
Girls weren’t allowed to get angry the way boys did. Boys could swear and hit things, and girls would have to go into their room like their mother, rock on a chair, dig their fingernails into the palms of their hands until there was blood, and then sometimes take the white pills that made everything go away.
Kit has spent half her life asking herself if it was possible that she could end up like her mother and her grandmother—crouched in a bedroom, taking pills, swatting away anger and evil thoughts in the dark while the men chopped wood and kicked one another.
The idea terrifies her.
Since the bottle incident, Kit has developed a weird compulsion to move her left leg up and down whenever she’s sitting. It makes her entire body move, and she looks as if she needs new medication. She wants to change. She has to change, otherwise her leg might come off.
Kit closes her eyes and sees her mother curled on her side, looking at her with her eyes wide. Near the end, her mother kept
The room Kit shares with her husband actually makes her laugh every time she walks through the bedroom door. Both she and Peter were sticklers for neatness when Sarah was growing up, and now their room looks like it belongs to a college freshman who has just figured out Mom isn’t going to make her put away discarded clothes.
“Underwear on the floor. Check. Bed never made. Check. Mismatched socks lying in all four corners. Check. Platters with food on them all over the place. Check.” That was the last conversation she had with Peter the one night last week when they managed to go to bed at the same time.
His work schedule is a mess, but Kit sometimes feels like no one really wants to be in the same room with her anyway. She’s thinking maybe they would all like her again if she did change her name back to Agnes. Her birth family has all but disowned her since she went after Mark with the wine bottle.
Thinking about it still makes her a little crazy. That son of a bitch. He can get angry and say things, but I can’t . Kit knows that words can be bigger and better weapons than broken bottles, but she lashed out with the bottle. Her tongue, and the cascade of words and truths that would pour out if she could be honest, would make her wounded brother bleed to death on the spot.
Six months. That’s how long Kit sat with their mother. One hundred and eighty-five nights of hell. The tubes and the medicine and her mother crying in her sleep, what little sleep she had, and Kate lying on an old camping air mattress on the floor with her hand tucked under the blankets so that she could feel a pulse, touch her mother’s skin, make certain she was there when her mother needed her the most.
She is the only daughter, so there was no question that it would be her. It was always her. Kit suspended her life, while her brothers, always the heroes, came and went, and it was as if she had stepped back in time.
She cooked and cleaned and handed them drinks, and then Kit rolled her mother on her side and cleaned the sheets and emptied the bedpan. The boys arrived like glorious gods and then drove off to their nice beds and families every night, and that son of a bitch Mark—was she doing enough, was she there when Ma took her last breath, did she have her pain meds, did she really do everything she could? Who the hell wouldn’t snap?
Now there is this ridiculous court-mandated anger crap. Anger is like the middle name of her entire family. Agnes Anger Ferranti. Mark Anger Ferranti. John Anger Ferranti. Luke Anger Ferranti. Matthew Anger Ferranti. All the sweet apostles and one saint. Why she ever kept her last name when she married is now a mystery to Kit.
Girls weren’t allowed to get angry the way boys did. Boys could swear and hit things, and girls would have to go into their room like their mother, rock on a chair, dig their fingernails into the palms of their hands until there was blood, and then sometimes take the white pills that made everything go away.
Kit has spent half her life asking herself if it was possible that she could end up like her mother and her grandmother—crouched in a bedroom, taking pills, swatting away anger and evil thoughts in the dark while the men chopped wood and kicked one another.
The idea terrifies her.
Since the bottle incident, Kit has developed a weird compulsion to move her left leg up and down whenever she’s sitting. It makes her entire body move, and she looks as if she needs new medication. She wants to change. She has to change, otherwise her leg might come off.
Kit closes her eyes and sees her mother curled on her side, looking at her with her eyes wide. Near the end, her mother kept
Similar Books
