Read Shem Creek for Free Online

lifetime of your belongings without you to sort through it all. . . .”
    “You’re right. When do we leave?”
    “Tomorrow. We’re driving.”
    “Oh my God! Fourteen more hours in the car? Crap! We just did this. And then turn around and come back here? Just like that?”
    “You always were the smart one, Lindsey! I’m thinking you can leave your winter clothes at Daddy’s and maybe he can keep some other stuff for us until I find us a house here. And, I can’t buy a house here until I know how much we’re gonna get for the house in Montclair, right? So, either we will stay with Aunt Mimi for a little longer or we can look for something to rent. Anyway, the most important thing is to get the Montclair house looking right to go on the market. That means . . .”
    “Throwing out tons of shit!”
    “Language! Really, Lindsey! But, that’s the general plan. We’ll probably put some stuff in storage for a while.”
    “God, Mom! This is so depressing! I mean, I’m going to Montclair, coming back here, then going back to New York Labor Day weekend and starting school and you won’t be in Montclair for me to come home to on the weekends! I don’t want to spend my weekends with Daddy and Patti! She drives me crazy and he is crazy! You know that!”
    Lindsey choked up and started to cry like I hadn’t seen her do in ages. I knew what was upsetting her—too much change in too short a period of time. She hated change. Always had. I put my arms around her and let her cry on my shoulder.
    “Baby, listen to your momma. Everything’s going to be fine. This will all work out just fine. It’s the best thing for all of us. Right?”
    “I know,” she said. Her voice was shaking with uncertainty. “I’ll just be the one in Daddy’s backyard, burying cash in coffee cans and counting Cipro for when the cloud of terror floats over from Manhattan!”
    “Don’t worry, honey. I just know this is for the best. Your momma has never done a crazy thing in her whole life.”
    She raised her head and looked at me, half smiling. “Well, you just did.”
    “Thanks a lot! And you know that extra money I’m getting from my new job?”
    “Is this the part where you buy me off? I need a Coke.”
    “Yep! It’s for airline tickets. Get me a Coke too, honey. Diet, if there’s any left. Listen, Mimi says you can fly from LaGuardia to Myrtle Beach for under two hundred dollars. That’s ten trips, which I have to tell you I don’t think you’ll even want to take! Once you get into the swing of college you’ll forget about your old momma.”
    She filled two glasses with ice from the door of the refrigerator and poured, handing me one. “Don’t say that, Mom. I know I can come here but I don’t like the idea of you not being there !”
    “So, you want me to sit in Montclair and wait to see if you want to come home for the weekend?”
    “Pretty much sucks, right?”
    “Pretty much a little-girl-with-a-potty-mouth thing to say, sweetheart.”
    “Ugh! I hate growing up! You want a piece of cake?”
    “Sure, why not? A sliver, though.”
    I looked around my sister’s kitchen, doing inventory. The sparkling clean white countertops and shining oak floors were beautiful. Her cabinets were white too, with paned glass doors. Old linen napkins with lace borders tipped over the edges of her shelves. Her cobalt glasses, all lined up in rows, were not chipped. Her red-and-cobalt patterned plates, all stacked, matched. Everything in the room and especially the pound cake on the footed platter sang of a happy life, an organized life. The appeal of it was becoming addictive.
    The front door opened and closed and my sister had returned.
    “Heeeey! What are y’all doooo-ing?” She sailed in the room singsonging and gave Lindsey a peck on the cheek. “Isn’t that cake the best thing you ever put in your mouth? I swear, sometimes they just turn out .”
    “It’s like eating velvet!” I said with my mouth full. “Why didn’t you