Strange but True Read Free

brown as Philip’s. Her small ears, formerly bare and delicate, are now pierced with so many silver studs and hoops that it looks painful. The biggest change, though, is Melissa’s face, which used to be so gentle and feminine, the kind of pure, all-American girl you might see in an ad for spring dresses in the department store circulars that come with the Sunday newspaper. Now that face, that smile, those eyes, are ruined by the scars from her last night with Ronnie. Philip would have assumed that she’d gone to a plastic surgeon, like the ones his father played golf with in Florida, but no. Imprinted on her left cheek is a crisscross of lines. Above her right eye is a mangled patch of skin that has somehow interfered with the hair meant to grow there, leaving her with half an eyebrow and a permanently lopsided appearance. She keeps her lips sealed in such a tight, unyielding way that it makes him think of a coin purse snapped shut. Only when she speaks does he get the briefest glimpse of the dark vacancy where her two front teeth used to be.
    â€œWhat happened to you?” she asks Philip.
    He is so preoccupied by her appearance that it takes him an extra second to remember his own physical state. “Oh,” he says, realizing that it’s best not to bring up what his mother calls “that business back in New York.” He looks down at the hard gray plastic of his cast, the black bucklelike contraptions across the top of his foot. “I had an accident. A skiing accident.”
    â€œAre you okay?”
    Philip wants to ask her the same thing, but it doesn’t seem appropriate. “In another few weeks, I’ll be good as new.”
    Melissa stuffs her hands into the pockets of her Indian-print shirt, causing the material to shift against her swollen stomach as she glances up the staircase. “Is Mr. Chase here?”
    The question snaps his mother out of her trance. “No. Mr. Chase is not here.”
    Before she can go off on the topic of his father—one of her favorite and most easily triggered rants—Philip says, “So you’re pregnant.”
    Melissa looks at her belly, then turns her moss green eyes toward his. The tremble in her voice returns when she tells him, “Nine months.”
    â€œI guess you’re due any day then?”
    â€œI guess so,” she says.
    The moment feels tense, awkward suddenly, and Philip lets out a nervous laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Well, don’t go into labor on us or anything.”
    Melissa doesn’t so much as smile. “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “I know when the baby will come.”
    And that’s when his eyes trail down to her hand. He notices that she is not wearing a ring. In his mind, Philip hears his mother’s voice saying, The last thing I need to hear right now is how happy she is married to someone else when my son is rotting six feet beneath the ground . Apparently, she doesn’t have to worry about that. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen so you can sit down?” he suggests, already leading the way.
    Once they’re inside, Melissa eases herself into one of the ladder-back chairs that Ronnie and his father used to complain were uncomfortable. His mother, who is keeping suspiciously quiet, resumes her position at the chopping block.
    â€œM,” Philip says, “why don’t you join us over here?”
    â€œI’m perfectly content where I am.”
    If Melissa notices his mother’s peculiar behavior, she doesn’t let on. Her face remains as still and vacant as a mannequin’s, or a damaged mannequin anyway. Her mouth is sealed tight like that coin purse he’d imagined. Only those moss green eyes of hers move as she stares around the room—from the streaky pea-soup mess in the sink and on the counter, to the clutter of prescription slips held to the hulking refrigerator by a Liberty Bell magnet, to the wooden key