Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

Author:Anne Lamott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

The next night, Elizabeth asked James to take a walk with her after dinner. They went out in T-shirts and rolled-up jeans. A glowing moon, still more than three-quarters of its disc illuminated, was ringed in a fuzzy corona. They held hands, walking under the branches of their neighbor’s persimmon tree.

“Rosie’s in such a good place tonight,” said Elizabeth. She was working up to the half-sentence blurt that there was something she needed to tell him, and she knew by now that she did. After leaving Lank yesterday and heading home for dinner, she had tried to convince herself that she was keeping the secret so as not to endanger her relationship with Rosie. It was draped in virtue: I’m doing it for others. But she admitted the truth to herself as she’d drifted to sleep in James’s arms. Keeping the secret was a kind of protection from her daughter’s wrath.

She took James’s hand under the moonlight and said again, “She’s in a good place.”

James was silent for a while. “Tick, tock, tick, tock.” This pissed her off, and she reconsidered telling him, but the imps inside were pushing out and through. He had noticed her preoccupation at dinner. “You seem far away,” he’d said, but she had shrugged it off. She hated to admit that it gave her the power of double-dealing, playing Rosie off James. Now, walking around with him, she tried to say the first words. “James?” she managed. So far so good. She almost said, “I’ve been keeping something from you,” but now he seemed distant, and at the same time, it was so lovely to be alone, holding hands, and she knew what he would say: “How could you!”—the mantra of the betrayed. Then, “We’re supposed to live in trust, Elizabeth, and you’ve dumped all over that.”

Then he began to talk. “Even though I get so angry with Rosie, I know things could be a whole lot worse—look at what other parents are going through. Some of these kids are total lushes already. I don’t actually think Rosie is. We need broader-spectrum tests than the ones you got—her eyes are clear most of the time, and she doesn’t smell boozy.” They both sighed loudly at the same time, and this made them laugh. “Hey, want to walk to the Parkade?” he asked. “At least we can see how much worse her scary little friends are doing. That’ll cheer us up.” Elizabeth poked him, and he laughed enthusiastically at his own awfulness.

They walked along for another five minutes, and came up the steps from the movie theater. At nine p.m., the Parkade was crawling with teenagers, some huddled in groups, plopped on various stairs, furtively peering out from the bus kiosk. There was a random milling quality, and yet a sense of cohesion and sanctuary. “I want to write a piece about this place,” James whispered. “Don’t tell Rosie.”

They knew many of the players tonight. Some of them had been friends of Rosie’s since kindergarten, in the school district she was in before they moved to Landsdale.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.