Flesh and Blood Read Free Page A

on the floor, at which she immediately started howling. He helped Susan and Billy put the red plastic hotels back into their proper order on the green pile carpet, where they kept toppling over.
    “We can’t play it in here,” Susan said.
    “I hate this game,” Billy added.
    “Play,” Constantine said. “And no fights. Dinner will be in a few minutes.”
    He picked Zoe up again. He told her everything was all right, she was his little girl, an angel sent down from heaven, but her cries continued. He carried her back into the kitchen.
    “How’s dinner coming?” he asked.
    “Dinner,” Mary said. “It’s after six, isn’t it?”
    “It’s six forty-five. The kids are getting cranky.”
    She yawned again, gripping the edge of the counter as if the linoleum was unsteady under her feet. Before her lay a cake shaped like a rabbit, covered with white coconut icing that simulated fur.
    “That’s nice,” he said, bouncing his wailing daughter in his arms. “Look, Zoe. Look, sweetheart. A bunny.”
    Mary smoothed the icing with a spatula and slipped a frigid glance at Constantine. He had, once again, erred in some obscure unpredictable way.
    “The kids are starving.”
    “I’ve got fish sticks and Tater Tots in the freezer,” she said. “Maybe you could help out a little. Maybe you could turn on the oven and take things out of the freezer for me.” She smoothed the smooth icing and added, “Tomorrow is Easter, Constantine. I’ve got my whole family coming. There’s a lot to do.”
    Constantine’s face burned. He would not fight. He would concentrate on love and possibility, the small perfection of this cake. He jostled Zoe, whispering nonsense words into her howls. Without speaking he turned on the oven, took brightly colored frozen packets from the freezer and set them tenderly on the countertop, as if they might break. Later, after the children had eaten and been put to bed, he helped Mary fill Easter baskets at the dining-room table. The baskets were woven of lavender and pink raffia. He stuffed them with handfuls of green plastic straw while Mary assembled the candies and little toys.
    “I’ve still got the baby’s Easter dress to finish,” she said. “And we’ve got to hide eggs for the egg hunt tomorrow.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
    “Everything’s so expensive.” She sighed. “I just can’t believe what everything costs.”
    Constantine swallowed, and put straw into a basket. Why did Mary refuse to understand about money? She went into the kitchen and came out with the rabbit-shaped cake, which she set in the middle of the dining-room table. She appraised it critically, her head cocked to one side. It had two red gumdrops for eyes, a black jelly bean for a nose, and whiskers made of licorice. Constantine’s eyes teared at the sight of the cake. It was a marvel. It could have come from one of the downtown bakeries, the great white ones done in gleaming tile, their lavish confections tumbled out on silver trays, their hidden chimneys exhaling scents as deep and sweet as hope itself.
    “I should have made Joey and Eleanor bring something,” she said. “They’re not that much worse off than we are. Con, put some newspaper in the bottoms of those baskets first, so the straw doesn’t look so skimpy.”
    “Okay.”
    Mary sighed, a long dry exhalation with a faint rattle, a surprisingly elderly sound in a woman twenty-six years old. “It’s Easter,” she said.
    He nodded. It was American Easter. Greek Easter would not fall for another three weeks, although he knew Mary wouldn’t like his mentioning it. Whenever the occasion demanded it she’d say, “We’re Americans, Con. Americans.” Her own mother, who’d gotten herself from Palermo to New Jersey so her children could be born U.S. citizens, flew an American flag next to the grieving plaster Madonna in her front yard.
    “I feel so tired,” Mary said. “It’s the holidays, it seems like we should be having fun, but all