Read Online Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay - Free Book Online Page B

muck.”
    She sits back down and rocks, lost in thought. Remembering thegeese? Her chin nods to her chest, her hands clutch the afghan. Sometimes Ellen wants to make Mary-Margaret understand that in so many ways they are the same, that their lives were decided for them by forces they did not recognize in time. But when Mary-Margaret looks at Ellen, she sees her son’s failure to marry well. When she sees Ellen’s first child, she sees a girl who can give her nothing. She doesn’t look up again until James comes into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed from watching the Packers.
    â€œWho’s winning?” Ellen says, even though she really doesn’t care.
    â€œNot us,” he says. “This looks very nice,” he tells the kids. Bert nods shyly; Amy shrugs. Ellen can feel how they are nervous, wondering what he wants, this strange man who is their father. But today he is trying; Ellen can see how hard he’s trying in the way he stands, shifting foot to foot.
    â€œJimmy, that bird’ll be all dried out if she puts it in now,” Mary-Margaret says.
    â€œSmells good,” James says, not looking at his mother.
    Ellen asks quickly, “When are you bringing up the tree?”
    â€œOh, soon,” he says. “When you’re done with this, I guess,” and he gestures vaguely at the ornaments, the twisted red and white ropes of cranberries and popcorn.
    â€œWe’re almost done,” Ellen says. “I want to leave time for a nap after supper so we’re all wide awake for Midnight Mass.”
    â€œWhat kind of tree is it?” Amy suddenly asks James.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know, like is it a fir, or a Scotch pine?”
    James considers this. “I guess you’ll have to tell me when you see it,” he says. “Maybe it’s just a Christmas tree.”
    â€œMama made goose so it fell off the bone,” Mary-Margaret says. “This goose will be dried right up.”
    â€œI think it will be fine,” James says softly. He kisses Ellen’scheek, surprising her, then heads back into the living room. Mary-Margaret sulks, wrapping the red flannel scarf more tightly around her neck, but she doesn’t say anything else. After James is gone, Amy rolls her eyes and says, “There’s no such thing as a Christmas tree.”
    â€œUse your imagination,” Ellen says.
    But Amy rolls her eyes a second time. Lately, she’s been studying James, looking for signs of weakness, for chances to prove him wrong. She’s at an age where she is figuring out that her parents are not perfect; she resents it, resents them, but it is James whom she blames. It frightens Ellen sometimes to think of Amy as a ten-year-old girl, almost a teenager, certainly beginning to emerge as an individual person. She watches Amy work with the scissors, searching for clues that will tell her what Amy will be like when she’s grown, eight Christmases from now. She wonders what all of them will be like, as she scours the countertop with bleach, thinking of James’s unexpected kiss.
    During halftime, James goes into the basement. He’s down there for a long time before they hear him curse. His voice travels up the heating vent and echoes in the living room as if he were right there. “ Got -dammit!” he says. The kids giggle and run downstairs. Mary-Margaret giggles too, sneaks looks at Ellen; her boy is being naughty. She sits in her parlor chair by the window in her pink chenille robe, her hair freshly curled, rinsed the color of the faintest blue sky. Beside her, Fritz sprawls in his La-Z-Boy. When Ellen moves the end table from between their chairs to make room for the tree, his sock feet stick straight up like exclamations.
    â€œWhere the hell am I going to set my coffee?” he says. “How the hell can I see to read without the lamp?”
    â€œThe Christmas tree will give off light,” she says. “Or I can set the