Free Watch How We Walk by Jennifer LoveGrove Page B

listening at the door for my mother to leave. I handed her back her sweatshirt and pants and pulled the curtain all the way around my bed and tugged the blanket over my head.
    I trembled under the scratchy, coarse covers. I didn’t know what had happened to me, what was real and what people were making up, and I was scared of my own mother. I didn’t want to experience any more of her raw, confusing unhappiness. It made me panic. I felt like I could sleep for days.
    Can you tell me a story? Like you used to?
    You give up too easily.
    Please?
    Fine. Just this once. Once upon a time, we could fly.

12

    ON SATURDAY MORNING, EMILY GOES to the hardware store with her father. She hardly ever gets to go because he usually picks up his supplies when she’s at school, so she jumps at the chance to tag along and visit the toy section. She assumes he doesn’t want any talking in the car, which is fine with her, so she reads from Circus World on the drive into town.
    The shop smells old and dusty and it’s cluttered, but Emily still likes it. You never know what you might see there — a hard-to-find Star Wars action figure, doll clothes so old that the hippie outfits are becoming trendy again, and sometimes they even stock live tropical fish. Just as she reaches the farthest corner of the store, the pet section, someone bellows at her dad. She heads back to the aisle with the coils of cords and wires to see who it is.
    â€” Ah, well, will you look at that — it’s Jim Morrow! Didn’t recognize you there, buddy!
    â€” Hello, Mr. Patton. How are you keeping?
    It’s Carli and Sally’s dad, from next door, though he doesn’t live there anymore. Emily stops at the end of the row, pretending to inspect some rolls of red and blue wire.
    â€” Call me Carl. And maybe I should call you Brother Jim, eh there, Brother Jim, how’s the Lord these days? Mr. Patton laughs long and loud and looks around to see who else is listening. The other customers smirk or look away.
    â€” Almost didn’t recognize you there, Jim, without your tie on, and without that briefcase full of Watchtower s!
    A teenage boy with thick glasses and long hair snickers from behind the cash register. Emily’s dad’s face turns red. He narrows his brown eyes, and Emily’s stomach knots and burns. She looks down at her hands and picks at the hangnail on her thumb. It feels good to tear off bits of dry skin there. It bleeds a little bead of crimson and she pops her thumb into her mouth.
    â€” I’m just joking with you there, Brother Jim, don’t be sore. How’s that wife of yours?
    Emily wonders what they would look like from high above, if she were a funambulist. She puts one foot perfectly in front of the other, over and over, along the crack in the tiles on the floor until she is standing next to her father. From a hundred meters above them, she would see tall, skinny Mr. Patton, with his half-bald head and his lopsided red nose, leaning toward her father and swaying with laughter, and her dad too, stocky and not as tall, putting his hands in his pockets and angling his shoulders away.
    â€” Fine. We’re all fine. He turns his back to Mr. Patton and nods sharply.
    â€” Let’s go, Emily. They don’t have the cables I need.
    EMILY CAN SMELL HER MOM’S instant coffee when they get home. Even though she would rather stay home all day and watch cartoons and read, she is going out in service with Uncle Tyler. Lenora is supposed to come too, but she overslept and promises to go on Sunday instead.
    In the kitchen, her mom sits slumped at the table and Uncle Tyler leans against the fridge. The kettle screeches and Emily jumps. Her mom rubs her temples, sighs, and turns off the burner.
    â€” Okay kiddo, looks like it’s just you and me today, let’s go.
    Uncle Tyler’s coat and suit jacket are slung over one shoulder and his tie is loosened. His hair curls over the