Amends: A Love Story Read Online Free Page B

problems. It's just that some people are better
at hiding them than others."
    Now, despite feeling like the worst, most
disloyal daughter in the world, I wonder.
    "Not that I know of, Dad," I hedge.
    He is not satisfied. "C'mon," he says,
wheedling. "You can tell me. Is it one of the doctors?"
    I shrink back into my pillows. I'm trying to
think of something to say, when a Jasper Heights police car, sirens
blaring, pulls in front of the house.

    /////////////////////////

    "More coffee, Mr. Dormer?" Dad nods while
Chase McNaughton, the young male officer, expertly makes a fresh
pot. Chase is movie-star handsome.
    I am lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket
with my feet propped up. Nan Jacobs—the rounded, middle-aged female
officer—takes my blood pressure. "A little low," she mutters, "you
might be suffering from a touch of shock."
    "I thought that only happens when you lose a
lot of blood," I say, confused.
    "No," she says. "Some people can have an
extreme physical reaction to emotional trauma. It's a normal
physiological response to an abnormal situation."
    I am silent for a moment. I feel strangely
cold. My hands and feet tingle. What the officers told us just
can't be right. There's got to be some kind of mistake. Maybe Mom
really is having an affair, and she's run off with a bipolar
plastic surgeon. Anything but this.
    "Are you sure it was my Mom?" I ask. "She's a
very careful driver. She's never been in an accident before."
    Nan's face radiates pity, and the bottom
drops out of my stomach. "We're sure," she says. "One of the
doctors at the hospital identified her body."
    "But how did she die?" I can't help asking
even though I really don't want to know.
    "Blunt force trauma," says Nan as gently as
she can. "It's a fancy way of saying she hit her head and then bled
into her brain." I feel my guts clench into a ball, and I'm
suddenly glad I'm not a breakfast kind of person.
    I close my eyes for a moment
and open them when Dad starts sobbing. His cries are primal and
anguished: rough, shuddering barks that Nan and I can hear from the
kitchen. I hear a loud smash and Chase urging my father to keep it
together from his daughter. Me.
    Nan is frowning. She pulls a card from her
pocket and hands it to me. It's a number for a women's shelter.
"I'm not exactly sure what your situation is here," she says
cautiously. "But, if you need someplace safe to go, don't hesitate
to call that number."
    "Thanks, but I'm fine." I'm not sure if it's
true, but it's my reflexive response. Dad keeps sobbing. He must
reach for a beer or a bottle, because I hear Chase ask him to put
something down. Things are definitely looking ugly.
    "I'm going to call my grandmother." I think
of Gran, Mom's mom. If anyone can fix this, she can.
    "Good," murmurs Nan, keeping one eye on the
kitchen. "I think that's a really good idea."

    /////////////////////////

    I watch my father snore the deep, stentorian
snores of alcohol-induced unconsciousness. He's lying on the
carpeted living room floor like a shaggy dog. I covered him with a
blanket when he finally passed out. My shirt is wet from his
tears.
    Now I'm cleaning the kitchen, which is a
disaster zone that would have made Mom curse and then weep. I start
by sweeping up the broken glass. I brush it into a dustpan and get
a sliver stuck in my finger. I pull it out and watch the blood pool
and flow. My mind leaps to Mom's accident and all the damage she
sustained. I run my hand—the one that isn't bleeding—across my
scalp and contemplate the fragility of my skull, and how easily it
could be crushed.
    Snap out of it, I tell myself. I bandage my
finger and keep cleaning. The next task is the worst: a pool of
beery vomit that my father heaved onto the kitchen right before the
police left. My mom usually took care of this kind of thing,
although I know immediately what to do. I throw a couple of towels
onto the oozing to soak up as much liquid as possible. Then I wad
up the towels, toss them into the washing