Read Fig for Free Online Page B

have time to go anywhere else,” she says. Daddy calls the suitcase “tourist paraphernalia.” It is blue and there’s a picture of Dorothy standing on the yellow brick road, holding Toto. I can’t tell if she’s at the beginning or the end of her journey. Underneath, written in white cursive, the suitcases reads: There’s No Place Like Grandma’s.
    I never get into Gran’s bed again.
    I sleep in her living room. Wrapped in scratchy sheets, I watch all the shadows, and I listen to the ticking that never seems to stop. And I suck my thumb. But when Gran sees, she yanks it from my mouth. She doesn’t care if my teeth scrape against my skin, and she doesn’t care when I get cut. I learn how to fall asleep without my thumb, but once I’m dreaming it sneaks back into my mouth. Gran buys a product from the drugstore called Hoof. It’s applied like fingernail polish. I try to remind Gran of Mama’s disapproval regarding makeup, but Gran says this isn’t cosmetic.
    â€œFiona,” she says, “this is about good hygiene and conquering bad habits.”
    Gran paints my thumbnail before I go to bed. Hoof tastes bitter—like burnt coffee, horseradish, and licking batteries all at once. But it doesn’t take long to chew it off. After Gran goes into her room, I chew and spit the bad taste into the thick carpet. While the taste never goes all the way away, it does get better, and the comfort of my thumb makes up for it.
    Gran replaces Hoof with a splint.
    It goes around my elbow to keep my arm from bending. This way, I can’t get my thumb into my mouth. The splint makes sleep impossible. I lie for hours watching the shadows of the passing cars drift across the ceiling and then across the floor, where they stretch—growing even longer, and longer still. I cannot sleep, and not sleeping makes me scared of everything. And the ticking continues. My arm throbs, and I’m still awake by the time morning is announced by the boy on the red bicycle as he hurls the daily newspaper at Gran’s front door.
    *  *  *  *
    Gran surrounds herself with other old ladies, and they all look at me like I’ve done something wrong. They look at me, and I know they know.
    They know all about my mother.
    They play hearts and talk about their dead husbands. My grandfather died from heart failure, but Gran makes it sound like he was the one who failed and not his heart. Mrs. Nelson is the only one with a husband who is still alive, and sometimes the card games are at her house. Mr. Nelson has emphysema from smoking cigarettes since he was eight years old. He is plugged in to a big tank that helps him breathe and makes the living room sound like the inside of an aquarium.
    Mrs. Nelson has several large paintings of Jesus Christ. Gran points to them with her bony, crooked fingers and tells me all the titles: The Immaculate Conception . The Birth of Baby Jesus . The Crucifixion . The Resurrection . When she says “conception” and “crucifixion,” she whispers like she does when she says “cancer,” “lesbian,” or “university.”
    Jesus is always surrounded by rays of light.
    In The Crucifixion , someone has hammered gigantic nails into his wrists, and there is a lot of shiny blood. Gran makes me look at this, but she won’t let me watch St. Elsewhere even though I’m allowed to watch it at home.
    Gran is worried that I will go to hell. She wants me baptized. She wants me to take my first communion. When I ask Uncle Billy what communion is, my question makes him laugh.
    â€œThat’s when we eat the flesh of Christ,” he says. “And then we drink his blood.”
    *  *  *  *
    Gran still goes to church in Eudora because that is where she got married.
    The Sacred Heart of Mary, only I read it as “scared” instead of “sacred” every time I see the sign.
    Gran introduces