Read The Fence My Father Built for Free Online

shack, Mom. A shack .”
    I looked around the back bumper at the house. Nova's eyes watered as if she were going to cry, but then they narrowed again and turned a petrified blue.
    I was the one who wanted to cry now. In order to stay tough I thought of Chaz once more. “This is only temporary, hon. I told you that. I had to get away from Portland to figure things out.”
    “Can’t you and Dad figure things out?” Nova asked softly. She pointed at Tiny's junk piles. “All I asked for was a normal life, not a home at the dump.” She stood up, paced up and down in the reddish dirt, and then stopped and looked down at her new white canvas shoes. They were covered in dust. “I can’t stand it,” she shouted, as she yanked each sneaker off and tossed them at my feet. Then she sat down in the dust and cried.
    I wanted to be transported back in time, to the place before Chaz had gotten his first big gallery client and before he stopped wanting me. Back to the time when I ran the high school library and drove kids to soccer games on weekends. Streaky clouds drifted as the sunset unfolded, and I waited for Nova's tears to die down.
    The horizon was fading; the mountains looked like the backs of dark-robed grieving women, hunched over and still. I took Nova's hand and squeezed it like they do in those support groups where everyone goes by their first name. She looked up at me through smeared mascara and shrugged.
    “I’m scared too,” I said, pulling her into my arms. She was taller than I was now, by a good two inches. “But I’m not helpless. I’ll get a job. Things will work out. You’ll see.”
    “I’d rather be homeless than live here,” she growled. I didn’t answer.
    As I prodded Nova from the rear, we walked back to the house. Tiny and Truman stood at the door, and I could tell they were about to come see what was taking so long. My daughter pulled away when I tried to touch her, but at least she kept quiet.
    “Don’t worry, kiddo, we’ll be okay, I said. “We’re strong. We can handle this just fine.” I said these things out loud for her benefit, but my voice wavered. She knew the score.
    Nobody said much after that. Lutie dragged out examples of the family mail order business: hats made from soft drink cans, strung together with patches of crocheted yarn. I never would have guessed a hat could be that ugly. Tiny fed us tacos and frijoles con arroz for supper, and I found out my aunt seldom cooked. Nova and Tru looked as bored as kids at the children's table on Thanksgiving. I couldn’t stop thinking about how sticky my skin felt, or how we would manage out here with no phone, TV, ballet, or Library Guild meetings.
    But there was no lack of church. In fact, everything in Murkee was connected to the Red Rock Tabernacle in some way or another. Lutie went to services on Wednesdays and twice on Sunday. She met with her church ladies on the other days of the week. How would I explain to my aunt that organized religion wasn’t high on my list?
    I still believed in God, but most of my views would raise eyebrows in a backwater town like this. Lutie had already spoken about God's love for me and my children. What she didn’t know was that I believed in God as Creator, but I wasn’t so sure about the Divine's role as my Father. A father was someone who drank too much and wasn’t around when you needed a daddy. I wasn’t proud of my belief, but I was too hurt to change now. I sat at the table until my eyes stung with private tears and exhaustion.
    Around eight-thirty, Tiny nudged Lutie who lay snoring in the green recliner, and she awoke long enough to say goodnight and shuffle to the bedroom. Finally, I got Tru bedded down in the sewing room, and Nova stomped off to bed, too, to die of total boredom, she said.
    After the lights were out, I sat up in Tiny's miniature living room without so much as a box fan to cool things off. I tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. Finally, I tossed aside my book and