Free A Boy of Good Breeding by Miriam Toews Page B

table.
    “Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.
    “Yeah?” said Lorna.
    “You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.
    Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.
    “God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.
    “Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.”“Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.
    “Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.

five
    H osea had told on himself. It was eleven-year-old Minty who had spilled the beans to Hosea about where he had come from, but she had made him promise not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble. “Cross your heart and hope to die?” she’d said to him.
    “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he’d said and moved his tapered little index finger in the shape of an X over the general vicinity of his heart on the outside of his sweater.
    “Okay,” said Minty. “Good boy.”
    They were sitting together in the back seat of a rusted-out car that somebody had abandoned on the edge of Grandpa Funk’s alfalfa field.
    Minty looked out the windows on each side of the car to make sure nobody was watching. Hosea did the same.
    “Lookie,” said Minty.
    Hosea stared. Minty spread her skinny bare legs, making sure her dress didn’t ride up and thumped on her flat stomach a couple of times with the bottom of her fist like she was checking a soccer ball for air. Hosea’s eyes widened and Minty nodded.
    “Yessir,” she said. “But not me. Euphemia. You came right out of her …” Minty thumped her belly again.
    “You’re lying,” said Hosea.
    And then Minty panicked and saw her chance at redemption at the same time.
    “Yeah, I am,” she said. She smiled, relieved.
    “Are you?” said Hosea.
    “Yeah, I am,” she said.
    “Are you sure?” said Hosea.
    “Yeah, I’m sure,” said Minty.
    “Good,” said Hosea.
    They were both relieved. They smiled and giggled and Hosea thumped lightly on his stomach, too, just to try it out.
    “Punch me as hard as you can,” said Minty.
    “No,” said Hosea.
    “C’mon, Hose, just do it. I’ve tightened it up so it won’t hurt.” She put her chin down to her chest and moved her arms behind her back.
    “No,” said Hosea. He started kicking the back of the dusty seat in front of him.
    “Don’t you want to?” asked Minty.
    “I don’t want to,” he said. He was four years old.
    The next evening at the supper table Hosea sat on Euphemia’s lap finishing off his potatoes. From time to time he would thump on Euphemia’s stomach and she, irritated and trying to finish her own potatoes, would tell him to stop. Minty noticed this and tried to get Hosea’s attention. Hosea ignored Minty. He was grinning and he continued to thump Euphemia’s stomach. Minty was afraid Hosea was going to say something to get her in trouble, so she suggested