Read Snow Apples for Free Online Page A

stepped into the bedroom. He looked at the torn clothing, the rips on my face, the mud on my knee.
    â€œWhat happened?”
    I told him. He got out of bed and pulled his clothes on over his pajamas. Put on a jacket. Got a flashlight.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” I asked him.
    â€œI’m going to take care of him. He’s going to find out he can’t do that to my sister and get away with it.”
    I was horrified.
    â€œNo, don’t do that! He’s really...scary.” But Paul wouldn’t change his mind.
    After he had gone and I had cleaned myself up, I went to bed.
    So this was what it was like having a man defend you.
    My dad had been away now for five years—except for brief leaves—and I had forgotten the feeling of having a man in the house.
    Paul came in about an hour later. His footsteps sounded slow and heavy. He blew out the lamp in the kitchen and went to bed without a word. I heard the sound of his boots drop to the floor.
    I lay there listening to waves pound on the beach below the house, and the wind lift the shingles on the cottage.
    Why didn’t Paul say something?
    â€œPaul?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œNothing. Go to sleep.”
    â€œDid you...have a fight?”
    â€œNo. Now will you quit bothering me and go to sleep?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, go to sleep? An hour ago, you’re mad at him. Now that you’re home, you seem mad at me!”
    No answer.
    â€œPaul! Tell me! What’s the matter? Why won’t you tell me? Did he say something?”
    Another long silence. Then, just when I thought he wasn’t going to say anything more about it, his voice came, harsh and flat.
    â€œHe said you had been asking for it ever since he moved here, and how was he to know you didn’t mean it?”
    I couldn’t reply. There were no words. I knew, instinctively, that there was nothing I could say to defend myself.
    The wind shifted and rattled down the chimney. One of my younger brothers turned in bed, knocking his arm against the wall. The rain lessened to the gentlest of sounds. From the boys’ bedroom I heard Paul’s breathing deepen, become slow, regular. He slept.
    I was emptied, hollowed out, conscious of feeling a profound loss. I sensed that there existed in the world a mysterious banding together of men. Against women? Whatever—I was outside it. And there was nothing I could do but lie there and stare, uncomprehending, into the darkness.

7

    M Y MOTHER came back from Vancouver two days later with the land title in her purse.
    â€œIt’s registered in my name only,” she told Paul late that night when the rest of us were in bed. “Your father won’t be able to touch it.”
    Then Paul said something that shocked me.
    â€œDid you ever think of divorcing him?” Since joining the air force, he had started to smoke, and the smell of his cigarette drifted into the living room where I lay, no longer sleepy.
    I strained to hear my mother’s answer. Her voice sounded pleased. She seemed to welcome Paul’s concern. Yet there was something else in it—a pride, a falseness.
    â€œOh, no, the Church doesn’t believe in divorce. You know that. A promise is a promise.”
    â€œBut you haven’t been happy with Dad for years. At least with a divorce you’d be free of him.”
    I heard the stove lid lift and a piece of wood being dropped into the fire box. “Free? I’ll never be free of him.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean when you love somebody, you stay. Hoping for the best. The first time I set eyes on your father, I knew he’d be trouble for me. And yet I couldn’t seem to help myself.”
    A smell of freshly perked coffee and the sharp, sweet scent of cinnamon toast made me hungry. I had questions I wanted to ask, too. But I knew if I got up and went out to the kitchen, my mother would be angry. There were