Free Monstrous Affections by David Nickle Page B

come,” said Blaine.
    Mom was watching an old episode of Frasier on TV when they got
back, and when Dad came through the door after Shelly and Blaine,
she glared at him like he was trespassing. In a way, he was. This
was, strictly speaking, Mom’s house; she’d inherited it from her own
mother, free and clear back before Shelly’d been born. The house
was miles outside town, on an ugly flat scratch of land where the
grass grew too high and you saw the neighbours by the smoke from
their woodstoves in the winter. But it was theirs, free and clear.
    Mom called it their haven; for without the security of a paid-off
house in a jurisdiction where the taxes were low, who knew where
their awful circumstances would take them? She couldn’t work
anymore, not since the accident at the restaurant three years back
where she’d bunged her knee; a mortgage or even regular rent on
a place like this would ruin them. She couldn’t carry it on worker’s
comp alone.
    “Keep that thing in the shed,” she said, as Dad brought the basin
inside. Mom probably wouldn’t have sounded angry to anyone but
Shelly, and maybe Blaine.
    If Dad understood her tone, he didn’t let on. “Won’t do in the
shed,” he said. “Got to be here, or there wasn’t any point.”
    Mom rolled her eyes. “ There wasn’t any point . You got that right.”
She picked up the remote from the side of the couch and pointed
at the TV. Frasier’s dad and the little dog vanished, and the room
darkened a bit. With a grunt, Mom shifted her feet from the couch
to the floor, and lifted herself on her cane. It was no mean feat; Mom
had gotten heavy since she’d taken off work. “You going to catch a
rabbit with that?” she asked.
    Dad didn’t get it, and Mom laughed unkindly.
    “Mom’s talking about Bre’r Rabbit,” said Shelly, trying to help.
“From Song of the South .” She’d seen the movie over at her friend’s
house at Thanksgiving, and there was a tar baby in it. Bre’r Fox had
used it to catch Bre’r Rabbit — and it’d nearly worked.
    “Jail didn’t teach you much, did it now?” she said.
    Dad sucked in his breath, like he was about to say something —
and he looked down at the basin in his arms.
    “Oh no,” he said. “We’re not starting this again. Not now.” He
looked up, and his eyes had a calm about them.
    “I’m putting this in the basement,” he said. “You won’t have to
smell it, or even look at it if you don’t want to. So it won’t be any
trouble for you — all right?”
    “Whatever you say, dear ,” said Mom, then turned to address
Shelly. “Lord, now, isn’t it good to have a man around here? See, I
wouldn’t have any idea how to put a bucket of tar in the basement
and not stink up my house with it. Stupid little me wouldn’t know
how to keep those fumes out of the vents, and before you know it, all
the sheets’d start stinking like a blacktop highway in July!”
    She was looking at Shelly, but she was moving towards Dad,
stumping sideways on her cane like some kind of crab. Shelly tried
not to glare at her: it seemed like Mom just couldn’t give Dad a
chance.
    “And why, I’d never think to take my two children out to steal
tar from a construction site! On a night just two days I’d been out
of jail!”
    Dad was grinning now. He held out the basin in front of him as
Mom came nearer. The metal of it made a bonging sound as he lifted
it an inch or so.
    “Good thing,” she said, raising her free hand and touching the
rim of the basin, “my husband’s come home to set things right !”
    “Careful, Dornie,” Dad said. “Don’t want to get yourself into a
state.”
    Mom still wasn’t looking at Dad — she didn’t stop looking
at Shelly, and Shelly could see by her narrow eyes that Mom was
working herself into quite a state indeed. If that state had been
directed at Shelly, she would have been frightened for herself — but
tonight, Shelly was just a channel, a way for five years and a day