Pontoon Read Online Free Page A

we went to town and when it was over you said, ‘That was pretty good.’ I’ll always remember that. ‘Pretty good.’ Oh God, why do I keep going back to that? You never look back. I do. Because after that, everything happened so fast. You got that boil and you were so sick, I went to General Hospital to see you and the doctor said it was fifty-fifty, at best. They said only immediate family could see you. Your mother was in the hall crying and I went over and said I was a friend of yours and she looked at me and just cried harder. And then they shipped me to Chicago and the train stopped on an overpass and I could look down Portland Avenue to the hospital where you were and count up to the fourth floor and there was a light on in a room. And then it went out. I cried all the way to Chicago. God, I feel like I am going to cry now.”
    She pressed stop. That was enough of him. He sounded like a lot of old men she knew. You put a nickel in them and they told their life story twice.

    She dialed Kyle’s number at his apartment in Minneapolis. He picked up on the third ring. He sounded distracted. Kyle was a sophomore at the University, an English major, and he studied all the time.
    â€œIt’s Mother, honey. I’m awfully sorry but I have bad news. Grandma died.”
    â€œOmigod.” He let out a breath. “When did she die?” And a girl’s voice said, “What?”
    â€œShe died in her sleep. Last night. It must have been sudden. She was reading a book and it fell on the floor and she just died.”
    He was crying and the girl was comforting him, she said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And she hugged him. Barbara said, “I know it’s a shock. Me, too. I just walked in and there she was. She must’ve had a heart attack.”
    â€œWhen did it happen?” He was crying, he could hardly get the words out. The girl whispered, “Who died?”
    â€œLast night. Late. She went out for dinner with her buddies and came home and went to bed and she died. In her sleep. She was very peaceful.”
    The girl was whispering to him. “My grandma,” said Kyle. “Last night.”
    Barbara said that Grandma was not afraid of death, she looked it straight in the eye, and don’t you think she had such a good life because she knew life was short and that pushed her to do more than most people her age would dream of—she talked, listening to him try to take a deep breath and compose himself and this girl, whoever she was, nuzzling him and then it dawned on Barbara that the two of them were naked. Something in the pitch of their voices. A mother can tell. Two naked young people, her freckle-faced boyweeping, and this other person—she imagined a bosomy girl with studs in her nipples and a butterfly tattoo on her butt.
    She didn’t tell him that she was, at that very moment, sitting on the bed where the dead body lay . She could see the shape of Mother’s left hand under the sheet. She could have reached out and touched it.
    â€œAre you okay?” he said. Yes, of course she was okay, she only wished she could tell him what it was like to walk in and to find her own mother , for crying out loud, lying in bed with her eyes open . “I suppose I’m in shock,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do without her.”
    She listened hard for the girl to say something.
    â€œWhen’s the funeral?” Kyle asked.
    â€œWell, that’s what I called you about.” And she read him the letter. Word for word.
    â€œThat is so awesome,” he said. He wasn’t crying anymore, he was half laughing. “Wow. A bowling ball!! You mean, like a real bowling ball?”
    â€œI found it in her closet. It’s green. Like green marble. Expensive. It looks Italian.”
    â€œAnd no eulogy, no prayers. Boy. She had a whole other life, didn’t she.”
    â€œI am just a little