If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson

Author:Jacqueline Woodson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Romance, Young Adult, Childrens
ISBN: 9780142406014
Publisher: Speak
Published: 1998-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

THE APARTMENT WAS EMPTY AND STILL. I STOOD AT THE foot of the stairway watching the yellow-gold sunlight stream in from the living room window, and listening to the messages on the answering machine. My father had called from the hospital to say hello. Marc had called and the twins. And Susan—my older sister who was a therapist in Santa Cruz. She was more like an aunt than a sister—older and distant the way grown-ups can be. I pressed the “save” button and sat down on the bottom stair, leaning my head against the banister.

Anne was different. Even though she’s ten years older, she acted silly sometimes. I missed that Anne—the one that laughed so hard, whatever she was drinking came out of her nose. The Anne who had taken me on the Staten Island ferry when I was ten and surprised me with a cooler full of vendor hotdogs—all done up with onions and sauerkraut and mustard the way I loved them.

I closed my eyes now, remembering how me and Anne sat devouring hotdogs and watching the city grow smaller behind us as the ship pulled away from it.

Where was that Anne now? Marion had spoken to her a couple of times, but she never asked for me, the way she always used to. I pressed my forehead against the banister and swallowed. What had I done that was so wrong?

I heard Marion’s key in the door and got up, not wanting her to see me sitting like this.

“Marion ...?” I called, heading into the kitchen.

My father was standing at the refrigerator, pulling out sandwich meat and mayonnaise.

“No—not Marion—Edward—Dad to you. Why do you torture your mother like that, Ellie?” my father asked, his eyes twinkling. They were gray-blue like Anne and Ruben’s.

I kissed him on the cheek. “That’s why. Because you call me Ellie and she calls me Elisha.”

He sliced some bread from a loaf Marion had baked a few days before and started piling turkey onto it.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

My father nodded. He looked tired and thin in his blue shirt and khakis, his stethoscope dangling from his pocket. His hair was like mine, but the curls were gray now and starting to thin.

“In the emergency room this week. All week. Wouldn’t be surprised if they had to throw me up on a table.”

“You shouldn’t work so hard, Daddy.” I poured a glass of juice and set it on the table then put his sandwich on a plate. “I missed you this Sunday.”

We used to spend Sunday afternoons together, sitting and reading the New York Times. In the middle of an article, my father would frown and press his thumb against a paragraph. “Listen to this crazy thing that’s happening, Ellie,” he’d say, then slowly read, overemphasizing paragraphs he thought outrageous. And I’d lean back against the fireplace wall—I always sat on the floor those afternoons—with my ankles crossed, my eyes closed in concentration.

“Sunday afternoon,” my father said, smiling, “this intern

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