Read Catch Me When I Fall for Free Online

expression since the gun blast. It drove him crazy, the rebuke in it, the vigilance. Yes, he should have been more careful, and would be from now on. He bent over his plate and stuffed a forkful of overcooked green beans in his mouth, fighting the urge to gag.
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    Beatrice shot what she thought were furtive glances at Eustace. Something was eating at him. He was a peculiar boy. Difficult. A source of tension between her and her husband, Willem, from the get-go.
    â€œIf you can’t think of a name for him today, I’m gonna write down Eustace,” Willem had said at the hospital.
    â€œWhy should I name him? He’s your son too.” Beatrice had turned her back on Willem. The baby came by C-section after nine hours of labour. She ached. She felt too old to be a mother, had waited too long. She stared at the shadows of the wall-mounted TV and its metal arm on the wall beside her. Maybe she had postpartum depression. Her milk was coming and her breasts were painfully swollen. At the last feeding they were bigger than the baby’s head, an observation that depressed her.
    The depression had lingered in all the seventeen years since then. She managed. She coped, more or less, but felt certain that other people, her neighbours and friends, had it better than she did. She looked out the window at the unpainted barn, the scruffy yard. It lacked the tidy flower beds and well-tended gardens of the neighbouring farms, especially those owned by other Dutch Canadians. A rickety barbed-wire fence surrounded the land in front of her house—why couldn’t Eustace do any job properly?—and inside it a few cows grazed, a forlorn, untended air to them. The driveway was dirt and gravel, potholed and dusty. Behind the house—“ Verschrikkelijk ,” she had heard the old people at church say—sat a moulding plaid sofa and a ’73 John Deere tractor with a rusted can inverted over the upright muffler to keep out the rain. She pictured the west side of the house, the remnants of four more cars, including the doorless Dodge Dart that was Eustace’s favourite place to play when he was younger.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” she asked now. Her voice was a slash in the air, sharper than she intended.
    â€œLeave the boy alone,” Willem said. “He’s got work to do. Don’t want him sulking while we’re shovelling shit.”
    â€œDon’t say ‘shit’ at the table.” She crossed her arms on her belly and felt her face return to its customary scowl.
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    Eustace found Naomi in the cafeteria before school on Monday, eating a Danish. He admired her profile as he approached—the dark eyebrow, the curve of her lips. She sat upright, one slim leg crossed over the other. Her dark T-shirt was a bit baggier than most of her tops, but he didn’t think anyone could tell she was pregnant. He pushed aside a chair and leaned against the table, pressing his leg against hers. “Those aren’t good for you.”
    â€œShut up.” She took another bite.
    He swivelled his head to make sure no one was in earshot. He swallowed. “So for sure you won’t consider adoption, or abor—?” He bit off the word, seeing her eyes narrow. She shifted her leg away from his.
    â€œIf you don’t want to marry me, that’s fine. I’ll do it on my own. Look at Chloe. She’s fine.”
    Eustace thought about Chloe. If only Naomi were Chloe DeBeer. Not that he could imagine being with Chloe. She had a long, horsy face, talked incessantly, and slept around as much after her baby was born as she had before. But Chloe was Dutch. Her parents attended his church. Things would be so much easier for him if it were Chloe he’d gotten pregnant.
    â€œAre you gonna tell your mom and dad?”
    â€œGuess so. I think they’ll come around. They love me.” She put down the