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Chapter Twenty-Five
AFTER SYDNEY DROVE OFF, I sat alone in my car not wanting the memory of Sydney’s visit to fade just yet—reliving the day over and over, able to still feel her in my arms. Finally, I started the engine and drove to my parents’ house. As I slipped into Martha’s darkened room, she turned her head and blasted me with a radiant smile that I could see even in the faint light.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“What are you doing laying here in the dark?”
“I took a Percocet. I had therapy today.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fair,” she whispered. “I’m glad you came by. You need to straighten things out with Daddy.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “He’s the least of my worries.”
She exhaled slowly. “No, you need to.”
“He doesn’t care about me. He’s just humiliated by this whole thing and wants me to get it straight
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My Sister's Keeper Chapter Twenty-Six
PRESSING THE THROTTLE FORWARD, I steered the open boat into the choppy waters of the Intracoastal Waterway and turned southward into the wind. The boat bounced hard across each wave and a light spray moistened my face making it feel as if the temperature had suddenly dropped another twenty degrees. I reached for the ski mask and pulled it over my head.The channel was no more than a hundred feet wide, but the waterway itself varied from a few hundred yards wide in places to a mile wide in other places. In the wider stretches, there were strings of islands and shallow grounds on either side of the marked channel. A mid-sized yacht with a dinghy dragging behind it approached from the south and cruised past me twenty yards to my left with a rolling wall of water streaming outward behind it. Cutting toward the wave, I slammed through it, slipped into the smooth draft behind the yacht, and resumed my southward trek.A fisherman in a workboat much like mine pulled at a net a
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Twenty-Seven
SYDNEY SAT ACROSS THE TABLE from Scott and stared down at her plate. She hated it when he mimicked her eating. If she lifted her fork, he lifted his. When she took a bite, he took a bite. She dropped her fork onto her plate and lifted her champagne glass. “What pleasure could you possibly get from doing that?”He lifted his own glass. “Doing what?” His dark hair was overdue for a trim, hanging over deep-set gray eyes.The eyes of a fox, she thought. Or a weasel.Sunday brunch used to be their favorite meal together. They’d lay around in their bedclothes all morning, sip champagne, make love, eat a large breakfast around noon, and then spend the afternoon sailing.But Scott had changed. He found more pleasure in tormenting her now and playing games with her head, making her feel stupid and clumsy, and Sydney’s love had faded.She sipped her champagne and looked away at her cat, Tux, stationed on
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Twenty-Eight
I WASN’T SURE I’D HEARD the waitress correctly. “She was here? You saw her?”“I was outside on break smoking a cigarette when she and the guy she was with pulled up.” She popped her gum again.“Are you sure it was the same girl?”She held the newspaper farther away and squinted. “I might not know it was her from that picture alone, but she had those hair beads.”“What kind of boat was it?”“It was small—just a workboat.” She pointed out the window. “Like that one down there.” She pointed to my rental and goose bumps broke out on my arms.“There was a man with her?”“I didn’t see him very well. He stayed in the boat. They were having motor trouble. Somebody else passing through was trying to help them.”“How old was he?”“The man? I don’t know. Young, I think.”
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Twenty-Nine
DOWNTOWN, THE OFFICERS AGAIN led me up the concrete ramp into the holding area. And again, as the heavy metal door slammed shut behind me, a chill squiggled up my spine. The same desk sergeant shoved the same telephone in my direction, removed the cuffs, and repeated the same line, “You only get one, so you better make it a good one.”I needed to let Scott know where I was, but doubted he’d be at his office on a Sunday afternoon, so I called Sappy. I caught him walking out the door, explained what was going on, and asked him for two favors. The first was to post a note on the back door of the studio canceling rehearsal; the second being to find Scott McGillikin and let him know I was again in police custody and in dire need of his immediate presence.Parked in a hot room still wearing the layers of wet clothes, I became nauseous. I peeled off the jacket, two shirts, and the insulated underwear leaving them in a pile on the floor. Then waited.W
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty
FROM THE MOMENT Ashleigh stepped out of that storm into my home, anything having to do with her seemed to happen in a Twilight Zone atmosphere. Things around her just did not look, act, or add up the same way they did in the normal world. It was as if some kind of spell had been cast on me.“Who? The old man?” I asked.“Both. Jackson and his wife.”I wanted to get the hell out of there. To go out and look for “Rachel’s Diamond.” To work on characters, blocking, and set designs. I wanted to run to my sister and scream.“Jesus!” I said still trying to comprehend what he’d said. “I can’t believe it.” He didn’t answer, or even look up. I drew a slow breath to calm myself as he reached for my notes. “We need to tell them all that stuff I found out today. They need to know it.”“Quiet. Richard. Please.”I touched his arm. “All we did w
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-One
FRANTICALLY, I CHECKED CALLER ID—Unknown Number—and the phone directory, but found no listing under Sydney’s name. Son-of-a-bitch! I jumped in the car and sped to her studio hoping to find some kind of emergency number listed on the front door, but there was nothing. Back at home I lay awake the rest of the night waiting for the phone to ring again. It didn’t.I fixed a pot of coffee and sat at the breakfast table watching the sun come up wondering if Sydney might be watching it as well, wondering what kind of night she’d had.I took a shower, dressed, remembered the shattered cassette Martha wanted, dug it out of the trash, and gave it to her when I picked her up. We arrived back at the hospital just before 8 a.m., and I noticed Winston sitting in the waiting room on Dad’s floor. His hat was tipped down over his face covering his scars. I supposed he was there to support Mom.“You think he’s bein
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Two
THE NURSES GOT DAD STABILIZED and sedated while the four of us waited down the hall. Mom, Martha, me, and Winston. I had a thousand questions running through my mind, but for the first time in my life, I felt whole. And for the first time ever, I felt a closeness to Dad. He said I was perfect. I broke down and wept like a grief-stricken mother mourning the death of her child. My God! I was Charlie’s son. Why hadn’t someone told me? Quivering uncontrollably, I sat there in front of the three of them and bawled. They cried, too. Even Winston.It felt so good, so liberating—like I’d been used my whole life to mop the floor and someone had finally rinsed me clean and wrung me out.Dad had certainly given me a lot to think about. He may technically be my uncle, but on that day, he was my dad. And all at once, I wanted him to live. For the first time I understood him and wanted to know the rest of the story
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Thirty-Three
I RODE TO MOM’S and found Martha sitting in her wheelchair at the desk in the corner of her room. She was hunkered over a sheet of newspaper with all the parts to the cassette laid out on it.“Hey, hey! How’s it going?” I asked spreading myself across her doorframe.She raised her hand. “Shhh. Mom’s upstairs asleep.”“Oh, sorry.”“What are you so excited about?”“I just had lunch with Sydney Deagan.”“A date?”“Sort of.” I browsed the bookcase in the hall, removed the oldest photo album, and carried it into Martha’s room where I sat on her bed.“Tell me everything,” she said without looking up.I opened the dark leather cover on the album. It crinkled as it folded back. “Not much to tell. I picked up a couple of wraps and met her at the gazebo on the back of Greenfield Lake.”“M
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