Read North of Beautiful for Free Online

and slammed it to announce my arrival, then deliberately clomped loudly down the hall.
    “Hey, Mom, Dad,” I said, greeting another unhappy morning in the Cooper household. I grabbed a glass out of a cupboard and filled it with water from the fridge, all the while casting Mom surreptitious looks to check how she was doing. Around three years ago, Mom’s stomach went from a shy dip over her waistband to an all-out nosedive. Now, standing at the counter, her stomach rested on her thighs, her breasts on her stomach. Her body had become a worn-out totem pole, settling on itself. It hurt to see her giving up, giving out.
    “How far did you run today?” asked Dad, spoon en route to his mouth, where each bite would be chewed fifteen times exactly, no more, no less. I didn’t have to look at the contents of his spoon to know what he was eating. Mondays and Wednesdays it was oat bran. Every other day, cholesterol-lowering oatmeal dampened with non-fat milk, no brown sugar, no raisins, nothing to sweeten its plainness.
    “About five miles,” I said.
    “Good. I’ll log in seven and a half today. The last thing we want to be is flabby, right?” Chuckle, chuckle.
    I kept my face impassive so I wouldn’t become an accidental party to this put-down moment, whose focus could veer from me to Mom in the span of a second. My hand clenched my cup, and I drank deeply, drowning the “shut up, you asshole” that I longed to say. After all these years, you’d think Mom would have built up some immunity to him. But, freshly insulted, her shoulders slumped, as she kneaded the dough for scones, a precursor to the Thanksgiving feast she had been planning for the last three weeks. My brothers were boycotting; what else was new?
    “Is there more green tea?” Dad asked. Without looking up from his magazine, he nudged his teacup closer to the edge of the table.
    Translation: Pour me more. Now.
    No, Dad could never be accused of ordering Mom outright, he was so careful how he phrased anything. His comments may have sounded innocuous to the untrained ear, but make no mistake about it. They were poison-tipped darts. Just once, I’d have loved to see Mom snap back, “You’ve got two feet. Use them.”
    Apparently, Mom was taking too long. Dad lifted the teacup and wiggled it in the air, no word. Just a sidelong look at Mom and a shake of his head.
    Translation: God, could you be more inept?
    Say something, I thought, clenching my own glass so tightly I was surprised it didn’t shatter. With a soft, suffocated sigh, Mom scraped the dough clotted on her fingers so that she wouldn’t dirty the teapot. That resignation broke something in me.
    “Dad,” I said, recklessly pointing to the kettle no more than four feet away from him on the kitchen island, “the tea’s right there.”
    I might as well have called him an idiot, Mom’s intake of breath was that sharp. Warning bells clanged in my head, but it was too late. Dad lowered the academic journal he was reading (“Look at me, am I not the picture of cerebral?”). His face had settled into a smug expression, the right side of his mouth lifting, his eyelids half lowered — a look of complacency that meant he had been waiting for the right moment to pounce.
    He slid a thick envelope across the table in my direction. Williams College, my name on the front, envelope already ripped open.

Chapter six
    Trap Streets
    “SO,” DAD SAID, TONE LIGHT, “when were you going to tell me you were applying here?”
    I shook my head. “I didn’t think I’d get in.”
    “You did.”
    I couldn’t quell the quick smile of pleasure as I reached for the envelope. “I did? Mom, did you hear?”
    “So, Lois, you knew?” Dad asked quietly.
    “No!” Mom and I said at the same time. I raced ahead with “I applied on my own.”
    The envelope was in my hand for a mere second before Dad announced, “You’re not going.” A pause. Then he leaned back in his hardback chair, flattened his magazine on the