Free Helpless by Barbara Gowdy

are over,” and in her own frying pan made a mushroom-and-cheese omelet, which she served on her own white china plates. Over supper his father told stories Ron had heard many times before about the characters he used to run into during his travelling salesman days: the woman outside of St. Mary’s who swept the highway in front of her house; the trucker who travelled with a pet squirrel in his glove compartment. Mrs. Lawson laughed. Jenny, as before, remained stony, and in her cool, lidless eyes and the clink of the spoon against her teeth, Ron sensed danger, not necessarily to himself but as if she were a wild animal that, for the time being, accepted the company ofhumans. She had changed into an old-fashioned-looking dress, navy blue and cone shaped. It had a white frill at the neck and in the middle of the chest a large pocket, like a door, in which the outline of her notebook showed. As his father began clearing the plates she removed the notebook and turned to Mrs. Lawson and said, “Mother, should I read my new story to them?”
    “Maybe they’d rather hear it after dessert,” Mrs. Lawson said.
    Ron’s father waved a hand. “Let’s hear it now. Fire away.”
    “Jenny reads and writes at a grade-six level,” Mrs. Lawson informed Ron.
    The story was called “Moving Day.” It was about how their furniture had been in an aunt’s basement but was now arriving at the Clarksons’. The way Jenny read, in a singsong voice and with hand gestures, was astonishing, as if she’d practised over and over. She said that the weather today was lovely, not a cloud in the sky (an upward gesture), and that at the sight of the house, her heart (she patted it) leapt with joy because the brick was the same yellow as her old place. At this point she trailed off. She squinted at the page.
    “Can I start over?” she asked, not looking up. A blush began to climb her face.
    “Sure you can,” Ron’s father said. “You can tell it any way you want.”
    The blush had Ron enthralled. It was like a natural calamity. It drowned out the birthmark, then seeped away, like water into sand.
    “Constantine—” she said. His attention snapped back. She was talking about how he’d almost dropped her dollhouse. She said she’d trembled with fear (a shake of hershoulders) but luckily nothing fell out. “All and all,” she finished, “it was an exciting day of work and fun.” She closed the notebook. “There’s more,” she murmured, “but it’s not ready yet.”
    Ron’s father said, “Well, that was great.” He looked at Ron. “Wasn’t that great, Buddy?”
    “Yeah,” Ron said.
    One corner of Jenny’s mouth twitched. She slipped the notebook back into the pocket of her dress.
    Ron went on looking at her. Her bent little head with its strands of pinkish hair.

Chapter Ten
    I IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT, nine thirty. Rachel is lying on the porch sofa, listening to Evanescence. The iPod is Mika’s, as is the penlight she’s waving around. She directs the beam at her feet. After almost an entire week her nail polish is still perfect, not a single chip.
    Inside, at his dining room table, Mika marks exam papers. Rachel can see the top of his head and his white hair—his flaxen hair—flitting up in the breeze from the rotating fan. Her mother is at the motel and won’t be back until late because Bernie Silver is on holiday, so she’s playing his sets.
    At ten o’clock, her mother is going to call. Rachel can’t decide whether or not she’ll talk to her. Felix was the one who knocked over the lemonade, but her mother blamed her for putting the glass on a pile of books. And then she wouldn’t let her help clean up. “I’ll do it!” she yelled, grabbing the paper towels Rachel had raced to get from the kitchen.
    As she was leaving she said she was sorry for losing her temper, and Rachel said, “That’s okay,” but only to avoid more aggravation. When you don’t have a father, it isn’t fair to have a mother who gets so