Waves of Light Read Online Free Page A

pajama pants. So Vivian. So unlike every other adult I knew.
    Carefully, so I wouldn’t wake Frankie, I slid out of bed and tiptoed across the room.
    “What are you drawing?” I whispered.
    Vivian looked surprised, as though I’d pulled her from a dream. “Did I wake you?”
    “I think I woke myself. My head is too full.” I’d been so tired that I hadn’t done my nightly drawing, and now I was a mess.
    Vivian gestured at her sketchbook. “Well, you know what I do when my head is too full.”
    Vivian had drawn a series of pictures of her house in every season. Fall — a few leaves strewn on the ground and a pumpkin resting on her porch. She sat on the porch swing with a steaming mug in her hand. Winter at night — piles of snow, a little boy facing a snowman in the yard, and bright stars in the moonless sky. Spring — Vivian in her front yard,finishing the angel sculpture, a few patches of snow still here and there. And then summer — the raspberries in full bloom, a reddish sunrise streaking across the sky, Vivian holding hands with a man. I guessed her husband, David, who’d died a few years ago.
    “New York seems so over the top for me, the kind of thing I’ve always dreamed about,” Vivian said. “But what actually makes me happiest is my own home full of memories.”
    “Is that Peter?” I pointed to the little boy.
    “Yes.” Vivian smiled. “He asked about you the other day. Wanted to know how you were.”
    I sat down on the rollaway bed. “What did you tell him?”
    “That you’re becoming quite the artist. And, as always, you are such a kind friend.”
    “Not such a kind friend to him.” I pulled at a loose stitch in the blanket.
    “Peter might have stayed with me forever trying to help me get over David. But I will never get over my husband. You gave my son a gift. He’s free now, fighting fires and living his own life. Even though facing the charges from the DNR was difficult, Peter grew from the experience. You told the truth, Sadie. And the truth always helps people become free.”
    Tears pooled in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, so I just nodded and blinked hard. I hadn’t expected to talk about Peter. He hadn’t even been on my list of worries for the day. Now I really wanted to draw, but I wanted privacy to do it. This kind of drawing wasn’t something I liked to do with anyone watching me. Vivian may have sensed my hesitation,or maybe she really was tired. In either case, she closed her sketchbook.
    “I think I’ll lie down now,” she said. “But feel free to leave the light on for a while, if you want. It won’t bother me.”
    She slipped into the rollaway bed, and I glanced over to make sure Frankie was still asleep too. Sure enough, she was mouth-hanging-open, arm-draped-off-the-bed, deep asleep.
    As quietly as I could, I unzipped the front pocket of my suitcase and took out my sketchbook and pencils. I returned to the desk and sat there, rolling my pencil between my fingers and studying the blank page in the lamplight, waiting for my heart to slow. My thoughts still clacked around, stirred up further by our conversation about Peter. Recently, ever since I’d moved to Owl Creek, actually, I’d felt like a human wrecking ball.
    On the whole, things had gotten better for me. But still, so many people’s lives had changed because of things I’d done or said. Peter, for one, had moved away from Owl Creek after I’d reported him for illegal hunting and the DNR revoked his hunting license for two years. Now Frankie was moving away because her dad couldn’t stand my dad. Even though that wasn’t exactly my fault, I felt guilty by association. And then Mom — while I knew her sickness wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do something to help her get better. Should I help around the house more? Not ask her to drive me places? Was it possible to never worry her? And if I could somehow, miraculously, become the perfect daughter, would she finally get