Read What Comes After for Free Online Page B

Puke.
”
    Aunt Sue didn’t laugh, but she did nod, which I supposed meant she appreciated Book’s joke.
    Then she turned back to me. “Was there anything else you wanted to interrupt us about?” she asked.
    I thought about just shutting up. I’d gotten pretty good at it over the past month, biting my tongue around Mr. and Mrs. Stone, and eventually even around Beatrice. But I was getting tired of it. And besides, there was something I had to ask if I didn’t want to have to survive every day at school on a diet of Fig Newtons and Snapples.
    “I’d like to pack my own lunches for school,” I said. “Sandwiches would be OK,” I added, which I thought was pretty generous of me, given the limp thing on my plate. “I hope that’s not a problem.”
    Aunt Sue looked as if I’d just walked in the door uninvited. She glanced down at her sandwich, then back at me. Finally she said, “I ate school lunch.” She nodded at Book. “He eats school lunch.” She leveled her gaze at me again. “You eat school lunch.”
    She took a bite of her sandwich. “Now, was there something else you needed?”
    “No,” I said, afraid my face had turned red and they could see that I was embarrassed and angry. “There’s nothing.”
    I made myself finish my sandwich, though every bite seemed to stick in my throat, and I had to drink glass after glass of water to swallow. Then I rinsed my knife and plate and cup and laid them in the drain board.
    “Thanks for dinner,” I said. Aunt Sue and Book both grunted.
    I went upstairs, intending to reread
Huckleberry Finn
and write my essay, but when I shut the door, the tiny room felt too claustrophobic again. I stood on the bed and leaned against the window, drinking in the evening air, listening to the low bleating of the goats — a comforting sound, but not comforting enough to keep me from missing Maine, and Beatrice, and Dad, and a life that wasn’t mine anymore. Whatever I might have been hoping for in North Carolina, it wasn’t this.
    I lay on the bed and curled into a ball and stayed there, and thought about Dad — his gray hair he always let grow too long and unruly, his green fishing cap, which was buried in one of my clothes piles on the floor, his red flannel shirts that always had a tear in them somewhere, his Saturday stubble, his Sunday aftershave, his Christmas-tree coffee mug, which he used year-round. I dug through the piles of clothes until I found his cap, then held it against my chest. I sat hugging it for a few minutes, then pulled out my notebook and started another letter.
    Dear Dad,
    I milked goats today. I’m surprised by how much I remember about them from Mr. Lorentzen’s farm. There are also chickens and guineas, and they have a great dog here named Gnarly. . . .
    I finally forced myself to sit up and do my homework, and that helped a little, too.
    The phone rang just before Aunt Sue left for work.
    “Iris!” Aunt Sue yelled from downstairs. “You got a phone call.”
    I practically ran from the room to get it. It had to be Beatrice. No one else knew where I was or would think of calling me. I reached for the phone, but Aunt Sue didn’t let go right away.
    “I don’t like calls here,” she said. “Keep it short.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said.
    Beatrice heard.
“Yes, ma’am?”
she said once I had the phone to myself. “What’s that all about?”
    “It’s how they talk down here,” I said. I stretched the cord out of the kitchen and down the hall. “Aunt Sue has a lot of rules. I’m supposed to say it, to be polite.”
    “You aunt doesn’t sound too polite herself,” Beatrice said. “Telling you to keep it short the first time I even call.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “She’s pretty strict. But they have goats here, so that’s a plus. And they have a dog.”
    But Beatrice didn’t seem to hear me. “God, I miss you, Iris. There’s nobody to talk to up here. I still can’t believe you’re really gone. How are you? How’s the