Mister Boots Read Free Page A

don’t want you to live so much in your imagination. I don’t want you believing in everything you think up, like you can fly. Things are scientific.”
    (She tells me this all the time.) “But what were you going to tell me? You said you needed to tell me things you should have told before?”
    â€œOh, I’m better now, so no need. We’ll pick a nice time to talk later. Just the two of us. Maybe down by the ditch.”
    â€œIf you told me more things I’d know better what to believe.”
    â€œYou’re still so young.”
    â€œTen,” I say. “Did you forget?”
    â€œRoberta, Roberta. I’m sorry about your name.” (What does she mean by that?) “I never dared call you anything but Bobby.”
    She reaches toward me. (She’s always a great hand-holder—when she isn’t holding her knitting needles.) Now she reaches way out. “Honey . . . Roberta, you know those funny old clothes. . . .” And then she keels right over, banging her head on the floor.
    I try to lift her back on the bed and when I can’t, I straighten her out and put the pillow under her head. I keep calling, “Ma. Mother.”
    I suspect. But I don’t want it to be true. Pretty soon I know for sure.
    â€œThose funny old clothes,” were her last words—but at least her next to last word was, “Roberta.”
    Â 
    Â 
    I go outside then and listen and look. First I’m listening and looking to see if my sister and the doctor and Mister Boots are coming back. I need them. But then I listen and look around at the night. We’re not religious, or if we are, nobody told me, but I look at the moon and then I go down on my knees as if to some moon god. Mister Boots was right; everything is magic. I feel the breeze on my cheeks, as if it’s Mother’s hand.
    I say, “Ma,” again. I whisper it, as if I could call her back from somewhere out there. I guess I must have loved my mother. I never thought about it, but I feel sorry—sorry for myself and sorry for her because she worked so hard. Sorry I didn’t help any. And maybe there was something I should have done to help her not die.
    Then I think: What am I supposed to do now? Say a prayer? Wash the body? Sing a sad song? Homeschooling didn’t teach me anything at all about this. But my sister should be here to sing with me, and we should wash Mother together. That’s the kind of thing Mister Boots would say. So I wait. Boots said that a lot of life was being patient. I said, “Yes, if you’re a horse and tied up all the time,” but he said, “Every creature—people, too,” and he was right.
    Dawn. (Time is going by pretty fast.) The sun is just below the mountain. I want to tell Mother, “This is how it is on the morning after you died, everything pink and orange and purple. Rain over toward town, maybe on my sister and Moonlight Blue.” Maybe the rain is tears. I would like a little rain. I would like to look up and have wetness on my cheeks.
    â€œMother, how can it be that the horned lizard by our doorstep is still alive. Even still!”
    Â 
    Â 
    I don’t seem to notice time anymore. It goes on until the sun is twelve o’clockish. I finally see the long tail of dust, and pretty soon I hear the rattle of what turns out to be the doctor’s car. Mister Boots isn’t with them . . . nor Moonlight Blue. Pretty soon they’re close enough so I can see my sister is crying and she doesn’t even know about our mother yet. Her whole front is wet even though she holds the doctor’s big handkerchief wadded up against her cheeks. I get worried.
    â€œWhere is he? My Moonlight Blue?”
    That starts her off even more. The doctor has to tell about it for her. “He was stolen weeks ago. Other horses escaped at that time, too. They got them all back except this one. They said his ropes and halters were still