Eli the Good Read Free Page A

little song that I never tired of hearing.
    It’s important that you know this: my mother was beautiful. Everybody said so. She must have driven the boys at the high school absolutely crazy, pacing back and forth in front of the blackboard while she tried to teach them biology. Her hair was always just right, even though she didn’t pay a bit of attention to it. Daddy always said she was one of those women who have a talent for pulling her hair up in a matter of seconds without a thought. Usually she pinned it up with a single barrette in the center of her scalp, showing off her broad, smart forehead. Her eyes were green and clever, alert to everything happening around her. At the same time, there was a distance about my mother that was most noticeable in her eyes. A mystery there kept everyone — even me, especially me — from getting too close, although we all wanted to be close to her more than anything, wanted to know everything about her.
    She was only thirty-three years old that summer, and her beauty was in full bloom, a kind of peach tint that overtook her face and caused her to glow from within. People stopped talking when she dashed by on the street. There was something about the way she moved. She was set apart from the other women we knew because of the gracefulness she possessed. It was more than that, though. She was unusually confident, a strength that showed not only in her eyes but also in the determined steps she took in everyday motion. She always looked as if she had somewhere important to go.
    “There you are,” she said, her voice no more than three breaths, and the screen door cried open as she stepped down from the porch and onto the top step. She put her hand on my head as I leaned into her, my face against her waist. She smelled like lemon Joy, and I knew she had been washing dishes. For the rest of my life that scent has conjured up longing in me. “I’s getting worried about you,” she said.
    “I was right there,” I said, pointing to the ridge. “Watching you.”
    “It’s just you and me tonight,” she said, and opened the door to the screen porch. “Your daddy’s going to be real late, and Josie is fixing to go to the drive-in with Charles Asher.”
    “Can I go with her?” As we stepped into the house, I could smell the dishwater and the coffee she always kept warming on the stove. She drank two pots a day, sometimes, even in the hottest part of summer. From the bathroom down the hall, I could hear the muffled sound of Josie’s radio, playing Bob Seger.
    “Nawsir, you cannot.” Mom tipped a stream of coffee into a cup and leaned against the counter, taking a drink while she held one elbow in her free hand. “You have to stay here and keep me company.”
    “I’m going to watch Josie get ready,” I said, heading down the hall.
    “All right, then,” she said. I looked back to see her smiling at me with her hooded eyes. Sometimes she looked at me like that, with a strange mix of amusement and love and puzzlement. There was a wall between my mother and me that I couldn’t accept, even though I knew what it was: she loved my father more than me. This was hard for me.
    Once I had spied on my parents watching Johnny Carson together when I was supposed to be in bed. They were lying all curled up together on the couch, one of Daddy’s legs thrown over both of hers. My father realized about the same time as me that my mother was crying. He asked what was wrong, and she rolled over so he could run his thumb down the side of her face. She kissed his whole face, a dozen times on his eyes, his lips, his cheeks, his forehead. “I love you too much,” she said, still crying. “More than anything. More than anybody.”
    I don’t believe I ever completely forgave her for that.
    Strangely enough, there was no distance at all between my sister, Josie, and me. Although she was six years my senior, we got along better than any other brother and sister I knew.
    “Hey, little man,” she