Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) Read Online Free Page B

said, “I’m sorry.”
    â€œWhy are you sorry?” he said. I looked up at him and blinked. I hadn’t expected a question. His dark eyes snapped.
    I shrugged. “I guess I’m sorry we came here.”
    â€œYou guess?” he said.
    â€œI’m really sorry we came here,” I said.
    Carlie squeezed my shoulders and said, clear, “She’s a good kid for the most part.”
    Mr. Barrington smirked and moved on. Carlie squeezed my shoulders, harder.
    Dottie said she was sorry in a loud voice and she added a “Sir.”
    Bud mumbled and his father, Sam, made him repeat it.
    Mr. Barrington said to Glen, “How’s your hand?”
    â€œOkay,” Glen muttered. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œHe don’t mean no harm,” Ray said. “He’s a little thick in the head, sometimes.”
    Mr. Barrington nodded. “It seems to be going around,” he said, and indicated his son cowering in back of him. “I appreciate you coming up. We’ve been good neighbors. I’ll let you know what the insurance company says and we can settle up.”
    â€œSounds fair,” Daddy said.
    Andy glanced at me and I narrowed my eyes at him. He looked off toward the woods and scratched his head. I hoped he had a tick drilling into his scalp.
    â€œLucky he didn’t press charges,” Daddy said as the truck bumped down the road.
    Carlie snuggled me beneath her arm. “My little criminal,” she whispered. I pulled away and almost said, “I’m not little,” but decided against it. Quiet seemed the best resort. When Mr. Barrington sent us a bill, Daddy paid his part.
    â€œThere goes any trip money we might have had,” he said to Carlie.
    â€œThat’s just another sad excuse,” she said.

3
    C arlie went back to the Lobster Shack on Thursday, the first of August. “Got a double today,” she said to me. “Go to Grand’s house before lunch.” She left me sitting in the living room, eating peanut butter toast and watching
The Match Game
.
    When Dottie’s head popped up in the living room window I hauled up the screen, pulled her inside, and she tumbled onto the floor with a big grin.
    She told me that her mother, Madeline, had gone up to town with Evie, her little sister. “I can’t stay long,” she said. “She finds me gone, I’m dead. She’s on the warpath, for sure. Christ, she makes me clean the house mornings, then I have to stay in my room afternoons. I might lose what mind I do have, and I don’t have much to begin with.”
    â€œHow you doing?” she asked. She punched my shoulder and I winced. “How’d you get burned?” she asked.
    â€œWent to the beach a couple days ago with Carlie,” I said.
    â€œShe’s some harsh with the punishment,” Dottie said. “What you got to eat?” she asked. We both had our heads in the refrigerator when the screen door whined open so fast I jumped and yelled, “Jesus!”
    â€œUnless Jesus is in that refrigerator, he’ll want an apology,” Grand said to us.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said.
    â€œYou should be. Jesus died for your sins.” She looked at Dottie. “I imagine I never saw you, Dorothea?” she said.
    â€œOh, for sure,” Dottie said. She hightailed it out of the house.
    â€œYou got to come over now,” Grand said to me. “I’m halfway through making bread for the bean supper tomorrow. I got to have some help.” She hustled out of the house, her square behind shifting from side to side as I trotted after her.
    I called her Grand because she was. She stood five foot nine inches tall and was what people refer to as a big-boned woman. She’d lugged me on her boxy hips until she was sure I could walk around without killing myself.
    Her house was the oldest one on The Point. It stood alone on a ledge across the driveway from our house. The