Free Falling Angels by Barbara Gowdy

there isn’t really, Jim.”
    “Yeah, but we have to act like there is, or we ruin the whole exercise.”
    “Norma has become a woman.”
    Silence. Norma shut her eyes.
    “What the hell are you talking about?” their father asked again.
    Their mother said, very distinctly,“Ruby Keeler,” which must have been a code name, because their father said,“Jesus Christ.”
    “So Lou just has to scoot up and bring down some napkins,” their mother said.
    “She’s really bleeding?” he said.
    ‘Well, yes, Jim.”
    “Alrighty. We tear up a sheet.” He grabbed a green-striped flannelette sheet from the shelf where the linen was and ripped it in half. “What do ya think the pioneers did?” he asked.
    For the rest of the morning Norma was allowed to lie on the bunk with their mother, who read the
TV Guide,
smoked cigarettes and sipped whisky from her coffee mug. When their father wasn’t looking, she let Norma have a sip to ease her cramps.
    Lou and Sandy had to stick to The Regime. This was a chart that their father had written out on a piece of yellow Bristol board and nailed to the wall. Down one side was the time of day, and down the other was what they were supposed to do at that time. “Eight o’clock—rise; eight o’clock to eight-fifteen—use toilet in the following order: Dad, Sandy, Norma, Lou, Mom.” Et cetera. In front of some of the events were the initials “l.o.,” standing for “lights out” to save on candles and fuel. For instance, the singsong and afternoon exercises had an l.o. in front of them.
    Ten-thirty to eleven-thirty in the morning was exercises with the lights on. For the first part their father led Lou and Sandy in a march round and round the shelter, hollering,“Hup two three four! Left! Left!” Next was touching toes twenty-five times, and after that was twenty-five push-ups. The floor was cold on their hands, and Lou and Sandy could only do a couple of pushups before their arms gave out.
    “Five! Six! Seven!” their father went on counting. Between each of his push-ups he clapped, holding himself in the air for a second. He glared out of the corner of his eye for them to keep on going, and they managed to do a few more, but it was just too hard.
    He did fifty. Then he bounced up like a jack-in-the-box and shouted,“Stride jumps!”
    They jumped facing him, stepping on each other’s toes and hitting each other’s hands because there wasn’t enough room. His mouth was open in a circle that gusted coffee-smelling breath at them. Sweat streamed down his face. If they’d seen a man on the street looking like he was, they’d have run away.
    “Okay, play hopscotch,” he said after the stride jumps.
    “We need stones,” Lou said.
    “Play without ‘em.” He cranked the blower for air, then poured himself a glass of water. Lou asked if she could have one.
    “Wait ‘til lunch,” he said. “We have to ration.”
    “Psst.” It was their mother. She crooked her finger, and when Lou went over, she sneaked her a sip from her mug. Lou gasped at the fire in her throat.
    “You get used to it,” Norma whispered.
    “We’ll never make it to curtain call otherwise,” their mother whispered.
    Their father lay down on a bottom bunk and had a smoke. Every few seconds he checked his watch until it was time for the next event—“l.o. Singsong.”
    “Alrighty,” he said after he’d put out the lights. “What do you want to sing?”
    “Um,” Lou said. “Um,” she said again to hear her thin voice, like a pin of light in the pitch black. All she could think of was the Jiminy Cricket encyclopedia song, which their father wouldn’t know.
    “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” their father started singing. “Come on! Everybody! Sandy! Norma!”
    “It’s a long way to go,” their mother sang from the bunk in her high, shaky voice.
    Sandy squeezed a hand … their mother’s—she could tell by the smallness. She was half sitting, half lying across their mother’s and