Pigs In Heaven

HarperChoice PIGS IN HEAVEN a novel by BARBARA KINGSOLVER FOR CAMILLE Contents SPRING 1 1 QUEEN OF NOTHING 3 2 A MEAN EYE 11 3 THE TRUE STORIES 27 4 LUCKY BUSTER LIVES 36 5 THE SECRET OF TV 53 6 THIEVES OF CHILDREN 60 7 A WORLD OF FREE BREAKFAST 78 8 A MORE PERFECT UNION 87 9 THE PIGS IN HEAVEN 100 10 THE HORSES 115 SUMMER 135 11 SOMEONE THE SIZE OF GOD 137 12 THE TWILIGHT ZONE OF HUMANITY 157 13 THE CHURCH OF RISK AND HOPE 171 14 FIAT 183 15 COMMUNION 190 16 MAROONED 198 17 TREASURE 208 18 NATURAL SYSTEMS 221 19 CHEWING BONES 229 20 THE WAR OF THE BIRDS AND BEES 238 FALL 251 21 SKID ROAD 253 22 WELCOME TO HEAVEN 273 23 SECRET BUSINESS 296 24 WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 299 25 PICKING 319 26 OLD FLAME 331 27 FAMILY STORIES 347 28 SURRENDER DOROTHY 365 29 THE SECRET OF CREATION 379 30 SIX PIGS AND ONE MOTHER 386 31 HEN APPLES 400 32 THE SNAKE UK’TEN 409 33 THE GAMBLING AGENDA 424 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 437 About the Author Praise Other Books by Barbara Kingsolver Cover Copyright About the Publisher SPRING 1 QUEEN OF NOTHING WOMEN ON THEIR OWN RUN IN ALICE’S family. This dawns on her with the unkindness of a heart attack and she sits up in bed to get a closer look at her thoughts, which have collected above her in the dark. It’s early morning, April, windless, unreasonably hot even at this sun-forsaken hour. Alice is sixty-one. Her husband, Harland, is sleeping like a brick and snoring. To all appearances they’re a satisfied couple sliding home free into their golden years, but Alice knows that’s not how it’s going to go. She married him two years ago for love, or so she thought, and he’s a good enough man but a devotee of household silence. His idea of marriage is to spray WD-40 on anything that squeaks. Even on the nights when he turns over and holds her, Harland has no words for Alice—nothing to contradict all the years she lay alone, feeling the cold seep through her like cave air, turning her breasts to limestone from the inside out. This marriage has failed to warm her. The quiet only subsides when Harland PIGS IN HEAVEN / 4 sleeps and his tonsils make up for lost time. She can’t stand the sight of him there on his back, driving his hogs to market. She’s about to let herself out the door. She leaves the bed quietly and switches on the lamp in the living room, where his Naugahyde recliner confronts her, smug as a catcher’s mitt, with a long, deep impression of Harland running down its center. On weekends he watches cable TV with perfect vigilance, as if he’s afraid he’ll miss the end of the world—though he doesn’t bother with CNN, which, if the world did end, is where the taped footage would run. Harland prefers the Home Shopping Channel because he can follow it with the sound turned off. She has an edgy sense of being watched because of his collection of antique headlights, which stare from the china cabinet. Harland runs El-Jay’s Paint and Body and his junk is taking over her house. She hardly has the energy to claim it back. Old people might marry gracefully once in a while, but their houses rarely do. She snaps on the light