Читать книгу Fire Is Your Water - Jim Minick - Страница 20

9

Ada wanted to take her time with breakfast. Her mother sat at the table, her hands still in bandages, but her face wearing a smile. And her father was in better spirits, too. Nathan had called last night at nearly midnight, startling everyone awake. He’d arrived safely in Germany, he said, the call staticky and short. Ada went back to bed holding onto her father’s last words: “Well, you take care, son, and know we all love you.”

“At least he’s in Germany and not Korea,” her mother repeated. As on all mornings, they read the paper. And every evening after supper, they listened to the radio. They knew the intense battles, the mass of Chinamen coming down from the north. Or at least they knew as much as the reporters told them. Their imaginations did the rest.

Ada lifted the bacon and flinched as grease sizzled and spatters burned her arm. She checked the biscuits and started cracking eggs. At the table, her mother pretended to read the morning paper. Ada knew she watched, but Ada held her tongue. Her mother would just say, “But I like watching you work, Ada.” Besides, this was her first breakfast at the table since the fire. Her father had helped her with the chair, her mother complaining, “It’s just my hands, Peter, not my feet.” It was good to see her at her seat.

They talked about the storm that swept through in the night. Her father rubbed his mustache and said he saw a hickory blown down in the meadow. “And another tree, an oak, I think, back of the orchard, looks like it got struck.” Ada didn’t say how little she’d slept because of the lightning.

She set the platters on the table, and her father said grace.

“Not too much now,” her mother said as Ada served her plate. “And don’t watch me make a mess.”

Both Peter and Ada glanced at her just to check. She pinched her fork at an awkward angle, and some of the eggs fell off.

“I said don’t watch.”

The room was quiet as they stared at their plates and ate.

“I’m getting the building crew lined up,” her father said. “And the materials should get shipped in two days.” He talked with his mouth full, a piece of biscuit stuck to his moustache. “Just wish Nathan could be here.” Then, under his breath, “Just wish I hadn’t put up that wet alfalfa.”

“You just leave it there,” her mother said. “No need to feel guilty for things done and out of your control.”

Her father didn’t look up from his plate.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ada watched him. He ate slowly, moving his jaw sideways like a cow. On his forehead, the thin line of scar reminded her of when she was eight. They’d been skipping stones at the pond. Somehow her father had stepped in front of her just as she slung a rock, and that shale hit him right on the forehead, slashing a bloody gash three inches long. She wished she had known how to heal then, to stop the blood. She wished she knew how to now.

Ellie’s car horn sounded as Ada put her dishes in the sink. Lucky barked his greeting. “Don’t you touch these,” she warned her mother. “Daddy can do them, or I’ll do them tonight.”

“Yes, dear.” Her mother closed her eyes when Ada kissed her on the forehead. She kissed her father and hurried out the door.

Ellie and Ada said hello and fell into a comfortable quiet. Ada liked this early hour, the half-light of dawn, the receding darkness shrouding the land. It reminded her of all those years of morning treks to tend the cows. In a barn that no longer stood.

Ada focused on the road and her day ahead. She liked her job—the time with Ellie and Aunt Amanda, the bustle of people. She’d started two years ago, during her last year of high school, with the goal of saving up money for college. Her parents had offered to help, but she’d wanted to do this on her own, that sense of pride. By her figuring, she would have enough to cover tuition by the end of this summer. Just last week, she had mailed her application to the nursing school in Harrisburg.