Free Belly by Lisa Selin Davis Page A

swear. “Don’t you talk to your father like that. Show a little respect. Jesus H. Christ, were
     you raised by wolves?”
    Eliza lifted up the top piece of bread on her sandwich and laid it down again. “I was raised by you,” she said, keeping her
     eyes on the table. “You raised me.”
    “Damn straight. And I didn’t raise you to be no Jew-lover, either. And I didn’t raise your sister to be no blaspheming man-hating
     dyke bitch.”
    Eliza stood and put a bill on the table. “Here’s ten bucks. Get yourself some fries.”
    Twenty-nine paintings. Eleven different kinds of cereal in small cardboard boxes on display. Four waitrons. He took a bite
     of his sandwich. The eggs were no longer hot and the bread was a little soggy, but he dabbed hot sauce on top, and it was
     salty and it was good.
    T he truth is there was nothing wrong with Henry except he was an old-fashioned sissy and Belly would have liked someone a little
     more appropriate for his youngest daughter. One of their own kind. Someone he could pal around with. He had one gay kid, and
     another one was married to a man who hated him. The least Eliza could have done was shack up with someone Belly could talk
     to.
    She’d married him so young, so fast, right after high school with no warning, no time to let the announcement sink in. A Jewish
     wedding with a girl Jewish priest in a big field in the park in a tie-dyed wedding dress, for Chrissakes. They’d stood under
     a giant tablecloth, she’d walked around him seven times, they stepped on some glasses, and that was it. She was gone. The
     worst part about it was he knew she was miserable with him, and that seemed to be what sealed them together: two resigned
     sorts of people smothered in their own sadness. He would like to see his baby daughter smile every once in a while, for her
     to have a man who could make that happen.
    He wrapped her sandwich in a napkin, left the money on the table, and went next door. Eliza was helping a woman pick out some
     paints. She was bent over small glass jars of brightly colored powder, reading the labels and offering them one by one to
     the customer.
    He slipped into the store, past the art books to the architecture section. He now owned a collection, four whole books on
     the architecture of Saratoga Springs that Nora had brought him while he was away. He could point out the difference between
     Greek Revival, Queen Anne, and Italianate. But he wondered what good that knowledge would do him. What could he do with that
     information other than walk down the street and point out the mansions of Union Avenue that were cut up into apartments in
     the depressed seventies, the ones that were all bought by rich New Yorkers and restored to their former grandeur while he
     was away. What sort of employment could he cull from that?
    Eliza was bound to her own thankless job. The couple who owned the store—a fat duo, man and woman both going bald—watched
     every move their employees made with a security camera on the second floor, just sat up there all day and spied on their workers,
     wobbled down the stairs when they saw someone shelve a pallet wrong. Eliza worked here all through high school and college—they
     would only hire locals, she told Belly, never Skidmore students or summer people—and once, just once, Eliza had come home
     from a long August Sunday (they were expected to work six-day weeks in August), reached into her pocket, and revealed to Belly
     what was apparently a very expensive jar of cobalt pigment. He’d congratulated her on her theft.
    “Did you like the books I sent you?” Eliza asked him now. “I never asked.”
    Belly hid the sandwich behind his back and leaned against the bookshelves.
    “You mean the ones Nora got me?”
    “They were from me.”
    “No, they weren’t.”
    “Yes, they were.”
    Grease from the eggs began to seep onto his hands.
    “That explains why you never sent a thank-you note,” she said. “Belly, I’m sorry