Tide Road by Valerie Compton

Author:Valerie Compton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

A day made so little difference, and so much.

Buddy languished by the stove, seemingly unable to eat. Frances was up, desperately trying to nurse him into life. Rose was clinging helplessly to Kate.

Outside, the world had turned sharply green.

Rain had melted so much snow overnight that grass was visible in front of the house. Blackbirds stalked the yard, puffed up with pride over their glossy, iridescent heads and the rudder-shaped tails they dragged behind them like wedding trains, their cockiness all at odds with their high, strangled voices (like a clothesline being pulled) and the witless way they looked at you with their one bright staring eye. Sonia loved their enthusiasm. Squeak, they said, and she focused all her attention out the window at them, tried to block out Rose, who would not stop fantasizing about her date with Ray Vermeer. We’ll do this, we’ll do that, she kept saying, and Ray will be perfect. It seemed that she’d forgotten Stella. Since Frances got up and took over with Buddy, Rose had forgotten him too.

Ray, Ray, Ray, she said, and she was like those feathered drinking birds you set on the edge of a glass: up and down, up and down they bob their blown glass heads.

There was never silence anymore; Rose filled it up. Sonia yearned for silence.

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