Pretend You Love Me by Julie Anne Peters

Author:Julie Anne Peters [ANNE PETERS, JULIE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316205641
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2011-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

Her door was open a crack. I could hear the rattled intake of breath. She was dead to the world, snoring.

From the top drawer I scooped up Dad’s last two undershirts. Something in the back of the drawer drew my attention. Colors. Fabric. His suspenders. His red, white, and blue suspenders. The ones he wore for Coalton Days. I wanted them. I lifted them out and looped them over my wrist.

Ma hadn’t stirred, so I took the time to check around again for Dad’s work shirts. The navy ones with SZABO PLUMBING AND HEATING embroidered over the breast pocket. He had a stack of them somewhere. In all my snooping I hadn’t run across even one. Where were they? Ma’s side of the dresser, maybe?

Her first drawer was stuffed with underwear—enormous swaths of cotton and polyester. Gray, holey, ick. It reminded me of the first time—the only time—I saw her naked. I was jolted awake by her screaming.

“Mike! Mike!”

I threw off my quilt and tore down the hall. Their door was ajar and Ma was screeching, “Mike, wake up. The baby isn’t breathing.” She had the baby in her arms and was wheezing, “Wake up, wake up,” Shaking Camilia’s limp body. Ma’s loose skin jiggled and her rear end hung in layers, folds, and she turned to the side, in profile, and I saw her huge droopy breasts with the gigantic brown nipples and I couldn’t help staring at them. Dad lay in bed, his mouth open, snoring. Passed out.

Ma wailed, “Mike, get up! There’s something wrong with the baby.”

I blinked. “Mommy?”

She whirled and saw me in the doorway. Her eyes were wild with terror. Indescribable hell. She shrilled, “Get out! Get out of here!” She charged me, a raging elephant. “Go away.”

I realized suddenly she wasn’t calling for me, Mike. She meant Dad. Ma hit the door running and slammed it in my face. I stumbled and fell. Then skittered back to my room and shut my door, burrowing under my quilt, hugging my knees to my chest, shaking.

The sounds of doors opening and closing and Ma screaming. Darryl’s voice. “Ma?” Dad’s voice, finally. Later, a siren. Heavy footsteps. Shouting. I plugged my ears with my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut.

That’s all I remember.

After that, the empty crib. The one still sitting in the corner of Ma’s room under heaps of clothes and trash and passing years.

Would Dad’s shirts be in the crib? No, he kept them washed and folded. He kept all his things neat and tidy.

She didn’t. After Camilia died, Dad did everything around the house.

I eased open the second dresser drawer. A kraft envelope lay under the cup of a huge cotton bra. I slid out the envelope and tipped it. An object fell out. It chinked on the floor at my feet. A ring. Dad’s wedding band. She didn’t need that. I slid it on my finger. Too big, of course. The drawer below was empty. All her lower drawers, empty. I knew why. She couldn’t bend to reach them.

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