Read The Boy for Free Online

the river, afternoons, she and Eva played games. Eva put a fishnet bag over Paco’s head and they took bets on how long it would take him to paw it off. The dog became a regular Houdini, extricating himself with increasing economy of movement in preparation for some great vanishing act that would teach them both a lesson.
    In the falling light, as the river went from silver to jade, they wrote words on each other’s backs and had to guess. Looking at a book, they tightened knots along a piece of rope, undid them, learned how they went from memory over and over again. On an old tree trunk, feet off the ground, Eva was the captain, Anna the sailor.
    “‘O Captain! my Captain!’ Where to?”
    “The Galapagos! Barbados! Neptune! Jupiter! Orion!”
    And next, Anna would intone, “‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Warships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…’” and Eva, who had never seen Blade Runner but had memorized the speech, would almost always cut in.
    “Mamma.”
    “What?”
    “It’s ‘attack ships,’ not ‘warships.’”
    “‘Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched b-beams shine in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate . . .’”
    “Mamma.”
    “What?”
    “It’s ‘c-beams,’ not ‘b-beams.’”
    “Since when?”
    “Since the movie.”
    “‘I watched c-beams shine . . .’”
    “It’s ‘glitter.’ Not ‘shine.’”
    They unraveled time, simply by lying there, under the great sky.
    “What’s your first memory?” Eva asked one day as a pale quarter moon rose over the canyon.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Everyone has a first memory.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Mamma.”
    “I’m serious, I don’t know. What’s yours?”
    “You covered in blood. And dust. You covered in blood and dust.”
    On this cracked land at the northern end of the desert, much had been forgotten, much cast aside. Anna propped herself on her elbows, jolted into memory. It seemed like another life, the day she’d climbed barefoot and drunk on a dirt bike in the African bush and set out, cursing, for something she had no chance of finding—not in the cold, cold shadow of Eva’s father. Hours later, when she’d finally found her way back, shaking from the trauma of a fractured shoulder and badly lacerated skin, he had looked her over and picked up the car keys on his way out. He’d resurfaced three days later.
    “Get out,” she’d said.
    “I told you not to get on that bike.”
    “I said, get out.”
    “I told you.”
    “What are you after? A prize for telling me?”
    “I can’t do this anymore.”
    “Nobody is asking you to.”
    “Anna.”
    “Nobody’s asking you shit.”
    Now, behind mother and daughter, the river flowed thick and slow to the Mexican border. Walls of basalt rose on either side, intricately cracked, split deep from top to bottom.
    “Where were you?” asked Anna.
    “At the door when you came in.”
    “With Lynette?”
    “Yes.”
    “I didn’t see you.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “No it’s not okay. It’s fucked up.”
    “Mamma.”
    “What?”
    “You have to stop swearing.”
      
    Back at home, Esperanza had the cleaning channel on and a list, queasily committed to paper, of wipes and mops and degreasers and polishes Anna had to get for her at the store the next day. Anna made dinner, and in the simple lowering of food to the table, in the plain offering of victuals, found unimaginable release, a stillness close to peace. Esperanza poked at her zucchini, ignored all lettuce, grew faint at the sight of chard, and typically lasted no more than half an hour before heading out to Sonic.
    “I want to go with Espi!” Eva screamed when Espi got up from the table.
    “Eat your dinner.”
    “But I want to go with Espi!”
    Esperanza had one foot out the door—cigarette dangling off the corner of her mouth, lighter held aloft already. “Do what your mother tells you,” she said.
    “But I want a