Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

Author:Joyce Maynard [Maynard, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: Contemporary, Romance
ISBN: 9780061843402
Amazon: B002HPRBZS
Goodreads: 6261961
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2009-07-27T05:00:00+00:00

BACK AT THE HOUSE, FRANK AND my mother were getting ready to paint the storm windows. I wouldn’t have thought this would be the kind of job two people who were about to leave the country forever would be interested in, but maybe she was thinking she’d sell our place to get money for the farmhouse on Prince Edward Island. In case what she had in the bank wasn’t enough. She’d want our place here looking nice.

Hey, buddy. You got back just in the nick of time, Frank said. Want to help scrape these with me?

My mother was standing next to him. She had on a pair of overalls she always used when she was working in the garden, back when we had one, with her hair tied back in a bandana. They had all our storm windows out, and a paint scraper, and some sandpaper.

What do you think? she said. I’ve had this paint sitting around for a couple of years now. Frank said the three of us could knock out this job in no time if we all pitched in.

I wanted to paint with them. It looked like they were having fun. She had brought the radio outside, and they were doing some kind of Labor Day weekend countdown of hits. The song on at the moment was Olivia Newton-John, doing that number from Grease about summer love. My mother was holding the scraper like it was a microphone, pretending to be Olivia Newton-John.

I’m busy, I said.

A hurt look came over her face.

I thought it would be a fun project for us to do together, she said. You can fill us in on what you learned at the library.

I learned that my mother had been brainwashed. That the inside of her brain, if we could see it now, under the influence of sex, would resemble a fried egg. That her only hope lay in my getting rid of Frank. I didn’t say these things but I thought them.

Frank had put a hand on my shoulder now. I remembered the other time he’d done that, the first day I met him—how he’d told me he needed my help. Looking in his eyes, I had believed I could trust him.

I think you should help your mother here, son, he said.

Not angry, but firmer than I’d heard out of him before. Here it came, the thing Eleanor had warned me about. Him taking charge. Now I rode in the backseat. Soon I wouldn’t be in the car at all.

You’re not my boss, I said. You’re not my dad.

He withdrew his hand, as if he’d touched hot metal. Or dry ice.

It’s OK, Frank, my mother said. We can take care of the job, just the two of us.

I went inside and turned on the television, loud. The U.S. Open tennis match was on, not that I cared who won. One channel up, baseball. Then some infomercial for women who wanted to trim down their thighs. I didn’t care that my mother and

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