Com monwea lt h

A Novel

Ann Patchett

HARPER

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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 Excerpt

The children were seated across the aisle from one another, the
boys on the left and the girls on the right, and each was given a set
of junior airman wings, which only Cal refused to wear. They were
glad to be on the plane, glad to be free of direct supervision for six
hours. As much as they hated to leave their mother—they were
unquestionably loyal to their mother—the four Cousins children
thought of themselves as Virginians, even the youngest two, who
had been born after the family’s move west. All of the Cousins chil-
dren hated California. They were sick of being shoved down the
hallways of the Torrance Unified School District. They were sick of
the bus that picked them up on the corner every morning, and sick
of the bus driver who would not cut them a break, even thirty sec-
onds, if they were made late by Albie’s dawdling. They were sick of
their mother, no matter how much they loved her, because she had
on occasion cried when they returned to the house after missing
the bus. Now she would be late for work. She went over it all again
in the car as she drove them to school at terrifying speeds—she
had to work, they couldn’t live on what their father gave them, she
couldn’t afford to lose this job just because they weren’t responsible
enough to walk to the goddamn corner on time. They blocked her
out by pinching Albie, whose screams filled the car like mustard
gas. More than anything they were sick of Albie, who had spilled
his Coke all over the place and was at this very moment kicking
the seat in front of him on the plane. Everything that happened
was his fault. But they were sick of Cal too. He got to wear the
house key on a dirty string around his neck because their mother
told him it was his job to get everybody home after school and
make them a snack. Cal was sick of doing it, and on most days he
locked his sisters and brother out for at least an hour so that he
could watch the television shows that he wanted to watch and clear
his head. There was a hose on the side of the house and shade

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 beneath the carport. It wasn’t like they were going to die. When their
mother came home from work they met her at the door screaming
about the tyranny of their situation. They lied about having done
their homework, except for Holly, who always did her homework,
sometimes sitting Indian-style under the carport with her books in
her lap, because she lived for the positive reinforcement her teach-
ers heaped on her. They were sick of Holly and the superiority of
her good grades. Really, the only person they weren’t sick of was
Jeanette, and that was because they never thought about her. She
had retreated into a silence that any parent would have asked a
teacher or a pediatrician about had they noticed it, but no one no-
ticed. Jeanette was sick of that.
They reclined their seats as far back as they could go. They asked
for playing cards and ginger ale. They reveled in the sanctuary of
an airplane which was for the time being neither in California nor
Virginia, the only two places they had ever been in their lives.

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