The Love Children

The Love Children Read Free Page A

Book: The Love Children Read Free
Author: Marylin French
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my room doing homework when Mom answered the phone, and she called up to say that Dad was on the phone, and if I wanted to talk to him, I should get on the extension. I ran into her bedroom and picked up the phone; I heard him announce to my mother, “I fixed the kitchen for you!”
    â€œFor me?” she asked, surprised.
    â€œYes, of course for you. Who else?”
    A little excitement made its way into her voice. “You mean you put in a dishwasher? A washing machine? A dryer?”
    â€œNo,” he said angrily. “I put in a gas stove and a new sink. An expensive sink, one of those stainless steel jobbies.” I could picture his set mouth. I could hear the lecture on the environment, on not polluting the lake.
    â€œYou didn’t take out the wood stove, did you?” I asked.
    â€œNo, Jess. It’s still there,” he assured me.
    â€œAnd did you put in a toilet?” Mom asked quickly.
    â€œNo, I didn’t,” he said. “You know how I feel about that.” He hated toilets on principle.
    â€œAnd you know how I feel about that.”
    â€œWhy do you have to be so petty?”
    â€œI don’t think it’s petty to care about how you spend your life. What you spend your life doing.”
    â€œYou know damn well those things harm the environment.”
    â€œI’m not coming to live there, Pat.”
    â€œYou are such a bitch!” he shouted. “You bitch, you slut, you whore!” I hung up. Dad rarely called Mom by her name; he usually called her “honey” or “sweetie.” But whenever he was angry, he called her those other names.

    We didn’t hear from him for another month. The next time he called, I didn’t pick up the extension. My mother listened and murmured something that I couldn’t hear. When she hung up, she said in an odd tone of voice, “He’s finished his studio up there.”
    â€œBut he has such a nice one here!” I lamented. I wanted him to come back. I didn’t want to live in Vermont any more than Mom did. I loved Barnes, I loved my friends, I loved Cambridge. I didn’t want to move. If we lived in Vermont, Mom would have to drive me to and from school every day. I’d never see friends, if I even had any. But if Dad had built a studio there, he was serious.
    A few years earlier, he had bought an old barn and had it transported to a meadow near the cabin. Now he’d dug a foundation for it and put in a new floor and electric heat. He’d broken through the walls to insert huge windows, one facing the lake and another facing the meadow. I remembered how dark the cabin was, tucked in the woods, and I pictured light streaming into the barn. In history we were reading a book about ancient Athens that said that the men spent their days in the bright agora, or light, open-sided public buildings, while the women were locked away in the house, running home factories, doing all the work. It gave me some insight into how Mom felt about being in Vermont.
    About a month later, Dad came back to Cambridge again. Mom came home from work to find him and me sitting at the kitchen table. Dad had a whiskey and soda; I was drinking a cola. Mom stopped dead in the doorway and said in a flat voice that there were only leftovers for dinner and only enough for two. “What do you want to do for dinner, Pat?”
    He looked at her lazily. “I can just have eggs. You know I don’t care about food. You got any bacon?”
    â€œNo.”
    He shrugged. “You can make me a cheese omelet.”

    She came in and took off her coat and poured herself a drink. She put the scotch bottle beside the bottle of Canadian Club whiskey on the counter. That was a common sight. “Would it kill you to call and let me know you’re coming?”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, you had other plans for tonight?”
    Mom rarely went out at night except to political meetings. Dad knew that. She

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