Then Came You Read Free Page B

that was Nancy for you, I thought, snapping the buckles of Spencer’s car seat closed, then hurrying back into the house for string cheese and sippy cups, to pull my cell phone out of its charger and grab my purse. She used to be fat and bossy, and then, when she finished high school, she’d gone to work in a doctor’s office that did gastric banding and gotten the procedure and become skinny and bossy. One of the doctors in the practice had fallen for her, so now she was married and bossy, with that college degree that she never once let us forget about, the first one that anyone in our family had earned. I should just be grateful, I thought, as I got behind the wheel, that she and Dr. Scott were generous, even though I could feel a bitter taste crawl up the back of my throat whenever Nancy sweetly offered my parents a loan or slapped down her platinum card to pay for their gas or their groceries.
    My mom was waiting at the door, waving as if she hadn’t seen us in months, when, in fact, we’d had dinner with her on Friday. She looked like a children’s book drawing of a grandma, short and plump, with white hair drawn back softly in a bun, a rounded face, and pink cheeks. She wore a flounced denim skirt, a frilly white blouse, boiled-wool clogs on her feet, and a yellow-and-pink apron in a cheerful paisley pattern around her waist. Frank Junior and Spencer pelted up the concrete stairs and into her arms. “How are my handsome boys?” she crooned, hugging them, making me feel ashamed for the way I judged her. Maybe she was silly and forgetful, maybe she spent a lot of time involvedin the feuds and dramas of the Real Housewives of whatever city Bravo was visiting that season, but she loved my father, she loved me and Nancy, she loved her grandsons, she loved Frank, and she even managed to love Dr. Scott, who had the good looks and personality of a dried booger.
    The condo was toasty warm, smelling like baked-apple air freshener and cinnamon potpourri. It wasn’t a big place to begin with, and my mom had covered every available wall and surface with framed stitched samplers, frilly doilies, cushions embroidered with inspirational sayings, scented candles, fringe-shaded lamps, and collections of commemorative snow globes, shot glasses, and thimbles from every place from Branson to Atlantic City to Disney World. On the coffee table were cut-glass dishes of nuts and foil-wrapped candies whose colors would change with the season and were currently pastels for Easter. In the bathroom, extra rolls of toilet paper were tucked underneath the skirts of dolls with old-fashioned dresses and yellow yarn hair. There was even a crocheted sock-style wrap for the air freshener can. The first time we’d visited, Frank said my parents’ place looked like a Cracker Barrel had thrown up in the living room.
    “I baked cookies!” she cried as Spencer inserted a whole pistachio, still in its shell, up his nose, and Frank Junior crammed a fistful of pale-pink M&M’s into his mouth. Moving fast, I scooped the nut out of Spencer’s nostril, gave Frank Junior a stern look, gathered up the dishes of peppermints and butterscotch candies, Hershey’s Kisses and Swedish Fish, and put them out of reach.
    I turned from the mantel, from which Christmas stockings hung year-round, and saw my sister standing in the kitchen door, studying me.
    “Hi, Nance.”
    She nodded. In high school, she had our mother’s rosy cheeks and fine, flyaway light-brown hair. She’d been pretty, sweet-faced,with soft features and a body as plump as a bunch of pillows tied together. It had been hard to take her seriously when she told me what to wear and what to do during the daytime when, at night, I’d fall asleep while she cried over some insult, imagined or, more often, real.
    Now she was a size two with a butt and belly you could bounce quarters off of, and she worked as a part-time bookkeeper and receptionist in Dr. Scott’s office and spent most of her time