Mrs. Kimble Read Free

in the laundry hampers. “You nearly give me a heart attack,” said the housekeeper when she discovered them. “You’re lucky I don’t tell your mother.”
    Through the thin walls she heard movement, the bright tinkling music of morning cartoons. She lifted herself out of bed, her nylon nightgown clinging to her back. In the living room the children looked up from the television.
    “Mummy,” Jody squealed, springing off the couch and running to hug her leg. She wore shortie pajamas, printed with blue daisies.Birdie wondered for a moment who’d dressed the child for bed. She couldn’t remember doing it herself.
    “Can I go outside?” said Charlie. He lay sprawled on the rug, too close to the television.
    “May I go outside please, ” she corrected him. “Yes, you may.”
    He scrambled to his feet, already in socks and sneakers. The screen door spanked shut behind him. Birdie unwrapped Jody’s small arms from her leg. “Let me get you some breakfast,” she said. The children seemed to lie in wait for her, to ambush her the moment she crawled out of bed, full of energy and raging needs. At such times it could be altogether too much—her stomach squeezed, the sign of a rough morning ahead—for one person.
    She took Jody into the kitchen. It was a point of pride for Birdie: her kitchen was always immaculate. The room simply wasn’t used. She hadn’t cooked in weeks, hadn’t shopped except for brief trips to Beckwith’s corner store, to buy wine and overpriced loaves of bread.
    She found the box in the cupboard and poured the cereal into Jody’s plastic bowl, decorated with pictures of a cartoon cat. She opened the refrigerator and a sour smell floated into the kitchen. The milk had spoiled.
    “Oops,” she said, smiling brightly. She ought to pour it down the drain, but the very thought of sour milk turned her stomach; she left the carton where it was. She eyed the wine bottle corked with a paper napkin. Beside it an unopened bottle, the one she hadn’t got to last night. She closed the door.
    “Looks like it’s toast for us,” she said. She put two slices of bread in the toaster. She hadn’t finished the bottle, so why did she feel so wretched? On Sunday night she’d had two full bottles, and not so much as a headache when she woke the next morning.
    The toast popped, the sound a jolt to her heart. Perhaps she hadn’t overindulged, just consumed unwisely. She’d already learned that red wine hit her hardest, that a small meal—toast or crackers—cushioned the stomach and allowed her to drink more. Beyond that, the workings of alcohol were still a mystery. It seemed to hit her harder at certain times in her monthly cycle; why, she couldn’t imagine. She wondered if this were true for other women. She had no one to ask. Her mother was dead, and anyway had never touched anything stronger than lemonade. Her father’s new wife probably did drink, but Birdie couldn’t imagine talking to Helen about this or anything else.
    “Butter?” Jody asked.
    “Sorry, button.” Birdie spread the bread with grape jelly and thought of the wine.
    She would have been married eight years that Tuesday.
     
    T HEIR HOUSE sat back to back with the Raskins’ house; a tall hedge marked the border between the two yards. Charlie stepped through a bare spot in the hedge and cut through the Raskins’ backyard; then he crossed the street to the Hogans’. Mr. Hogan had already left for work. A single light burned in the kitchen window. Out back the Hogans’ dog, Queenie, snored in her pen. Next door the Fleurys’ German shepherd barked wildly—he barked at anything that moved—but Queenie didn’t even stir. She was an old, fat dog, collie and something else. A heavy chain hung from her collar. Charlie wondered why the Hogans bothered. He couldn’t imagine Queenie going anywhere.
    He tiptoed toward the pen, where Queenie’s bowl was filled with kibble. The nuggets were still crunchy. Later in the day theywould be