Dying Breath. Wendy Corsi Staub

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СКАЧАТЬ though, by any means. She’s been a fairly stable size 10 throughout most of her marriage. Now, of course, her waist is swelling pretty rapidly, along with everything else, it seems.

      She settles at the square kitchen table opposite her daughter, who has dutifully poured chips into a paper towel–lined basket and a small amount of salsa into a little ceramic bowl. At her age, Cam would have eaten the chips straight out of the bag and dunked them into salsa in its low, wide-mouthed jar—double-dipping, of course.

      Her father never told her that the saliva would get into the salsa and it would spoil in its jar. She had to figure that out for herself.

      Back when she was trying to create the model household, she made all kinds of rules for Tess, to save her from—God forbid—eating spoiled salsa, or something even more undesirable.

      Undesirable? Ha. Now that they’re dealing with an undesirable far more undesirable than anything Cam ever imagined, is there any comfort in the fact that the chips are in a basket and the salsa is in a bowl?

      “So how was school?” she asks Tess, fighting the urge to grab the damn basket and hurtle the chips across the room in sheer frustration at how it all turned out.

      “It was okay.”

      Cam wistfully remembers Kindergarten Tess, who attended PS 42 in Manhattan wearing cute little dresses and her favorite Lisa Frank plush animal backpack. Every day after school, she reported that her day had been “GRRRRR-EAT!!!”

      It’s hard to imagine her ever showing that much enthusiasm again. For anything.

      “Did you get your grade on your geometry quiz yet, Tess?”

      “No. Maybe tomorrow, he said.”

      “Good. What about English? Did you turn in your paper?”

      “Um, it was due today, so ye-e-ah.” Tess draws it out in the same derisive tone kids used to say duh back when Cam was a teenager.

      She’s been saying that a lot lately. “Ye-e-ah.”

      It’s better, Cam supposes, than the sarcastic no’s she was prone to before this phase.

      As in, “Did you turn in your paper?”

      “No, I poured gasoline on it and set it on fire.”

      Well, ask a stupid question…

      But lately Cam can’t seem to think of any that aren’t.

      She never considered Mike a sparkling conversationalist, but when he was around and they were a family, they somehow always managed to find something to talk about at this table over a decade of family dinners.

      Now Cam and Tess are left to sit here across from each other every night, toying with their food and attempting idle conversation, Mike’s empty chair between them.

      Now that he’s officially gone, maybe Cam should remove his chair altogether—get one of those little café tables for two. A black wrought iron one, maybe, to match the sleek appliances.

      Or perhaps she and Tess can start eating at stools at the granite-topped breakfast bar across the large kitchen. Even in the living room, in front of the plasma television. Tess used to beg for that when she was younger. She said none of her friends had to eat dinner sitting at the table with their parents.

      But Cam insisted on it. She had read somewhere, years ago, that children who eat dinner with their families are statistically far less likely to get involved with drinking, drugs, cigarettes, not to mention sex, truancy, suicidal thoughts…

      Lord knew she couldn’t have her precious only child fall victim to any of those adolescent perils. She would have a normal family, the family Cam never had, the family Mike did have and wanted to duplicate.

      They kept up the charade to the bitter end; the three of them sitting down every night to dinner, even when Mike stayed at the office later and later, and those meals eventually consisted of canned SpaghettiO’s, buttered Wonder Bread, take-out pizza, cold cereal…and, for Cam, a glass—or two—of wine.

      Tonight, however, there’s not a drop of liquor in the house, and a pot of chicken soup bubbles on the stove.

      Last night, they had chili and homemade cornbread.

      The night before that, a complete Sunday dinner of roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pan gravy…for two.

      “Daddy would like this,” Tess said bleakly, picking at a drumstick. “You should have made it for him sometime.”

      The message was clear: If you had acted more like a wife and mother, he wouldn’t have left. And I wouldn’t hate you so much.

      Of course, Cam doesn’t really believe her daughter hates her, despite her having flung the word around lately.

      But she does believe, just as Tess does, that it’s her own damn fault Mike is gone.

      “Do you have a lot of homework tonight?” she asks Tess.

      “Not really. Just an essay for English.”

      “That’s good. The teachers used to ease up at this time of year, I remember.”

      “Not really,” Tess says again, sounding deliberately contrary. “It’s more like they start trying to cram everything in before finals.”

      “Oh—that reminds me…” Good idea. Change the subject. “I was thinking we’d head right down to Beach Haven the week school gets out instead of waiting till July.”

      She holds her breath, waiting for Tess’s reaction.

      Normally, her daughter would be thrilled to get a head start on summer on Long Beach Island. They’ve been spending the better part of July and part of August, too, at the little gray-shingled house Cam and Mike bought there a few years ago.

      This year, everything is different.

      Sure enough—“Why do we have to go right away?” Tess protests.

      Cam hesitates. “Because you’re scheduled to spend the Fourth of July weekend with Daddy, so I thought we could get in some beach time before that.”

      “Oh.”

      They’re both new to this world of scheduled visitations. With their lives mapped out by lawyers well in advance, everything should be relatively uncomplicated—yet somehow, it all feels anything but.

      “What am I doing with Daddy for the Fourth?” Tess asks slowly, not looking at Cam as she busies herself wiping up a ring of condensation her glass left on the table.

      “I don’t know. Maybe you’ll get to see the fireworks in the city. Or,” Cam adds, noticing that Tess doesn’t seem thrilled by that notion, “maybe he’ll take you away someplace.”

      “Like where?”

      “I don’t know. It’s a long weekend—you’ve got four days.”

      “Maybe he can just come down the shore with us СКАЧАТЬ