Too much happiness_ stories - Alice Munro [53]
But it was the younger woman who monopolized the picture. Distinct and monstrous in her bright muumuu, dark hair done up in a row of little curls along her forehead, cheeks sloping into her neck. And in spite of all that bulge of flesh an expression of some satisfaction and cunning.
“That’s my mother and that’s my dad. And that’s my sister Madelaine. In the wheelchair.
“She was born funny. Nothing no doctor or anybody could do for her. And ate like a pig. There was bad blood between her and me since ever I remember. She was five years older than I was and she just set out to torment me. Throwing anything at me she could get her hands on and knockin me down and tryin to run over me with her fuckin wheelchair. Pardon my French.”
“It must have been hard for you. And hard for your parents.”
“Huh. They just rolled over and took it. They went to this church, see, and this preacher told them, she’s a gift from God. They took her with them to church and she’d fuckin howl like a fuckin cat in the backyard and they’d say oh, she’s tryin to make music, oh God fuckin bless her. Excuse me again.
“So I never bothered much with sticking around home, you know, I went and got my own life. That’s all right, I says, I’m not hanging around for this crap. I got my own life. I got work. I nearly always got work. I never sat around on my ass drunk on government money. On my rear end, I mean. I never asked my old man for a penny. I’d get up and tar a roof in the ninety-degree heat or I’d mop the floors in some stinkin old restaurant or go grease-monkey for some rotten cheatin garage. I’d do it. But I wasn’t always up for taking their shit so I wasn’t lasting too long. That shit people are always handing people like me and I couldn’t take it. I come from a decent home. My dad worked till he got too sick, he worked on the buses. I wasn’t brought up to take shit. Okay though—never mind that. What my parents always told me was, the house is yours. The house is all paid up and it’s in good shape and it’s yours. That’s what they told me. We know you had a hard time here when you were young and if you hadn’t had such a hard time you could of got an education, so we want to make it up to you how we can. So then not long ago I’m talking to my dad on the phone and he says, Of course you understand the deal. So I’m what deal? He says, It’s only a deal if you sign the papers you will take care of your sister as long as she lives. It’s only your home if it’s her home too, he says.
“Jesus. I never heard that before. I never heard that was the deal before. I always thought the deal was, when they died she’d go into a Home. And it wasn’t going to be my home.
“So I told my old man that wasn’t the way I understood it and he says it’s all sewed up for you to sign and if you don’t want to sign it you don’t have to. Your aunt Rennie will be around to keep an eye on you too so when we’re gone you see you stick to the arrangements.
“Yeah, my aunt Rennie. She’s my mom’s youngest sister and she is one prize bitch.
“Anyway he says your aunt Rennie will be keeping an eye on you and suddenly I just switched. I said, Well, I guess that’s the way it is and I guess it is only fair. Okay. Okay, is it all right if I come over and eat dinner with you this Sunday.
“Sure, he says. Glad you have come to look at it the right way. You always fire off too quick, he says, at your age you ought to have some sense.
“Funny you should say that, I says to myself.
“So over I go, and Mom has cooked