The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

Author:Anna-Marie McLemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466873230
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Celui qui veut être jeune quand il est vieux, doit être vieux quand il est jeune.

He who wants to be young when he is old, must be old when he is young.

Pépère barely acknowledged the nurse who took his pulse and blood pressure. When she told him the doctor would be right in, he looked out the window like he was waiting for a bus.

The nurse flashed Cluck and his grandfather a smile, bright as the flowers on her scrubs, and shut the door behind her.

Pépère nodded at her, his mouth in the same pinched smile he gave children. Cluck knew that look. His grandfather gave it to Dax and to Cluck’s cousins when they were small. How Cluck escaped it, he didn’t know. Probably because his hand bothered the rest of them so much they didn’t want to be near him. Pépère took their disdain as a recommendation.

“I don’t like that gadji,” Pépère said.

Cluck leaned against the sink and flipped through an old copy of Popular Mechanics. “The nurse?”

“Your new makeup girl.”

“You don’t like her for telling me about the blood on your mouchoir.”

“You let her follow you around like she is your little sister.”

Cluck cringed. Yes, that was exactly how he wanted to think of Lace.

“I understand,” his grandfather said. “You saved her life. She has nowhere to go. You want to care for her like she is some stray cat.”

Cluck turned the page. “So which is it, Pépère, is she my sister or my cat?”

The doctor came in, asked Pépère a few more questions, told him, “You should stop smoking.”

“I’ve told him that my whole life,” Cluck said. A waitress from Calais had gotten Pépère started on cigarettes before he left le Midi for the United States.

“Yes, it is the smoking.” Pépère stood and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you for your help, Doctor.” His way of ending an appointment he hadn’t wanted. Feign repentance of his half-century cigarette habit, and be on his way. This was why Cluck’s mother didn’t drag him to doctors anymore.

Cluck hadn’t even told his grandfather the appointment was for him until they’d parked and gone in. He’d said he was going in to see someone about his hands, still spotted the pinks and reds of worn brick. Only Pépère’s pity had kept him from suspecting on the drive over.

Like Cluck cared what his hands looked like, as long as they worked enough to make the wings. His guilt felt like an elbow jabbing his ribs. But if he hadn’t lied, Pépère never would have come.

The doctor scrawled on a prescription pad. Wrinkles softened the skin around his mouth. His hair had more gray than Pépère’s. Pépère must have been hoping for a resident. They were always pleased thinking they’d converted a smoker. Easier to con.

“I’m writing you a script.” The doctor tore off the sheet and held it out to Pépère. “For antibiotics. The way you’ve weakened your lungs, they can’t fight off infection the way we’d like.”

Pépère wouldn’t take the prescription.

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