Sacred Time Read Online Free Page B

can’t bear accordion music. I’ll leave restaurants if a strolling accordionist approaches my table. And I hate family gatherings if Belinda—now a music teacher—is coaxed into playing her father’s accordion.

    As our car passed the Bronx Zoo, I wished I could touch the green gate. Kevin had told me the gate felt warmer in winter. “Warmer than pavement and rocks. Because it’s made of copper. And copper is warm and stays red beneath the green.” Across from the zoo, the black spikes of the Botanical Garden fence filed past us, a thousand warriors with a thousand lances, and as I turned for one more glance at the zoo gate, I decided to draw a picture of it, not green, but red with smoke all around it.
    â€œI must have been crazy to recommend Malcolm for that job,” my father said. “Crazy to believe him when he said he was ready to start over.”
    â€œNot crazy,” my mother said. “Generous.”
    â€œCrazy crazy crazy…” With each “crazy” his right palm slapped the steering wheel.
    â€œGenerous. You got him the job because you’re generous by nature. And with those broken arms, he couldn’t go back to roofing for a while. Besides, he comes across as polite, because with that accent he sounds like a butler from the movies. People misjudge him.”
    â€œHe sells from an empty pushcart. A scungilli, that’s what he is. A bottom feeder.”
    â€œAlso very handsome.”
    â€œMalcolm Edmunds? Handsome?”
    â€œQuite gorgeous, actually. He’ll get another job roofing.”
    â€œBecause he’s gorgeous?” Smoke curled from my father’s nostrils.
    â€œBecause roofing is the only thing he’s good at. Agile and daring…that’s why he always finds someone to hire him after he gets fired.”
    â€œIt’s not the only thing he’s good at,” I said. “He can whistle whole songs without stopping for air.”
    â€œAnd where would we all be without that talent?” my father asked.
    â€œToo generous,” my mother murmured and stroked the band of neck above my father’s brown collar.
    I could feel their quarrel yield to tenderness. It often was like that between them; that’s why I believed nothing really bad could ever happen in my family.
    He leaned into her palm. “Your hands are cold.”
    â€œSo…want me to stop then?”
    â€œDon’t you dare.”
    As she tilted her head toward him, I saw where her left eyebrow, black near the bridge of her nose, changed abruptly to white. It had been two colors since birth, and my father liked to say that what saved my mother from being too perfect was that left eyebrow. With her black hair and pale skin, the contrast was startling, making her only more beautiful.
    â€œI’ll get someone to check out the car heater,” he said as we passed the marquee of the Globe Theater.
    â€œCan we afford it?”
    â€œSoon.” When her fingers kept moving across the back of his neck, he turned his face to kiss the inside of her wrist, the shadow of his beard blue below his jaw, and I felt a sudden and wild joy.
    â€œSo then,” she said, “will you marry me, Victor?”
    I loved it when he replied, “But I already did, mia cara, remember?” Once again, he kissed her wrist.
    My mother laughed. “I’ve been thinking about the twins’ names. Ever since Floria met Malcolm, she’s been mumbling ‘bastard’ all day long. Picking names for them that start with B gave her a way to cover that up. BaBelinda. BaBianca.”
    â€œNot in front of the boy, Leonora.”
    But already I was trying out my cousins’ names: “BaBelinda…BaBianca…Ba—”
    â€œAnthony,” my father said sternly. His hands covered the entire top of the steering wheel—wider than Uncle Malcolm’s hands with their long wrists and fingers that could fix a