The Kindness of Strangers Read Online Free Page A

ago.
    Sarah slowed the van.
    It struck her that she’d come up with only two blessings that morning, so she added Courtney as the third. Courtney had been doggedly devoted to Sarah’s survival in the months following Roy’s death.
    Sarah looked at the big house, remembering those daily phone calls.
    “Hi. So what did you decide to wear today?” Courtney would ask.
    “I’m not dressed.”
    “You should put on that pretty green sweater,” her tiny blond friend would declare. “And those black pants you wore to open house. Put those on and come meet me at the Starbucks on Brown Street.”
    “No . . . I can’t.” Everything was so impossible then.
    “Yes you can. I’ll come get you. I have a break in an hour. Get dressed.”
    And Sarah learned that if she didn’t dress, Courtney would come in and make her. And drag her by the hand to the car and force her to go drink coffee like a normal person.
    Those phone calls: “What have you eaten today?” “How about we get your hair cut?” “Today we’re getting your van an oil change.” “What’s Danny wearing for school pictures tomorrow?”
    Sarah blinked away the tears.
    Then she blinked again and squinted through the rain.
    Courtney’s son, Jordan, walked alone down his long driveway toward the road. Jordan was in Danny’s fifth-grade class. He used to be Danny’s best friend, but in the past couple of weeks, they’d seemed to have had a disagreement that neither Sarah nor Courtney could figure out. It pained both women. Jordan was an odd child, shy and aloof, but Sarah liked him. She was more than a little aware that Danny was odd and shy as well, and that without each other the two boys seemed destined to be outcast loners. Before she’d gotten pregnant, she used to wonder aloud, “What happens if we have the kid no one likes?”
    Roy used to kiss her and say, “Then we’ll just love him more, because he’ll need it.”
    Courtney worried seriously about Jordan and had told Sarah yesterday that she and Mark were having Jordan tested for Asperger’s syndrome, known to cause the sort of social-interaction handicaps that Jordan seemed to have.
    The rain poured as heavy as a waterfall, and Sarah knew that Jordan was more than an hour late to school. She pulled her van into the driveway beside him, and Jordan stopped walking and stared at her. He carried his green backpack in front of him, his arms crossed over it against his chest, as if he expected someone might snatch it from him. The rain matted his blond hair to his forehead. Sarah rolled down her window. “What are you doing out here?”
    Jordan looked at her and said, “Walking to school,” as if she were an idiot.
    “Where’s your mom?”
    “At work.” An ob-gyn, Courtney worked in a private practice as well as at Miami Valley Hospital, the same hospital where Roy had worked.
    Sarah frowned. She knew that Courtney drove Jordan to school every morning. “Well, is this good timing or what, then? Get in. I’ll take you.”
    But he stood there, as if uncertain. Water ran over Jordan’s face, beading in his lashes. It ran off his earlobes and fingertips and the bottom hem of his blue parka, but he didn’t move. Sarah remembered herself standing in the rain earlier that morning, how good the shocking cold had felt. She looked into Jordan’s face, and he, too, seemed to radiate a sense of new purpose. The wind shifted, and rain poured in the van window, soaking her sleeve. “Come on. Get in,” she said, as gently as she could.
    Jordan walked around to the passenger side. He put his book bag on the van floor and climbed in.
    “Is your dad at work, too?” Sarah asked.
    Jordan nodded. Mark was president of Kendrick, Kirker & Co., a huge PR firm.
    “Why are you so late for school?”
    Jordan shrugged and looked out the window. “I fell back asleep.”
    “Your mom left you alone?”
    “She was on call. She had an emergency.”
    “Well, we’ll get you there.” Reaching behind her, Sarah