A Swollen Red Sun Read Online Free Page B

did plumbing. Added two rooms on back and a laundry, with a loft above it all where they watched the stars at night through a skylight window.
    Everything felt right when Banks closed his eyes.
    “Dad, Mom says c’mon in here. Breakfast’s ready.”
    Banks nodded, sucked that last tuft of minty black for all it was worth, worked it dry, then dug it out with the tip of his tongue and let it fall in a spent clump on the grass. “Tell ’er I’m comin’, Jake.”
    Jake was fifteen and soon to be driving, with a strong interest in farming. He wore Wranglers and boots. Knew how to gut deer and change oil. He could drive a tractor and clean a shotgun. He worked as hard as a boy his age could and made his daddy proud.
    They ate breakfast in a hurry. Steph was texting. Reminded her mother she’d need hair spray. Jake reminded them both he had a school trip to Kansas City for the FFA. Had to have his money turned in by Friday or he couldn’t go.
    “How much you need again, boy?”
    Jake was hesitant to say. He knew they didn’t have it to give.
    “Hundred dollars,” he said, and swallowed hard.
    “Hundred dollars!” Banks yelled. “Goddamn.”
    His wife stopped what she’d been doing and looked at him with the same tough eyes she always did when he swore in front of the kids. “Dale Everett ,” she scolded.
    Grace laughed her precious little laugh. Her laughter was the sound of paradise. The sound angels made. The laugh a father could love more than anything else in the world.
    She was eating the jelly off her toast and she looked up with red cheeks and soft blue eyes.
    “Hey, pumpkin,” Banks said.
    “Dah-dee!”
    Grace was the love of his life. She was born with disabilities, but they worked with her every day. Jude quit her job at the courthouse to give Grace what she needed, and it was hard on her, hard on everyone. But after the first year, they saw the improvements they had feared with all their hearts that they would never see.
    Now six, she was so alive with her words and observations. She was slow, but amazing in all the ways that special kids are. She took nothing and gave back love and smiles.
    Banks loved his family enough to die for them. He would take money that wasn’t his from a meth cook to give them a better life. He would send his kids to college and invest in their futures. It was a cold, hard world beyond their small farm. So that was the least he could do.
    Jake looked at his father, curious and guilty for wanting.
    Banks winked and blew his angel, Grace, a kiss. He told the wife he was sorry about what he’d said and then told Jake to have a good time in Kansas City.
    The boy exploded with raw bliss that only a fifteen-year-old boy would know. Jude gave Dale a look that said we don’t have a hundred dollars , but Banks took everything in with warm eyes. Told his wife they’d make do. Told his family he loved them but he had to go to work.
    “Catch some bad guys today, Dad,” Jake said.
    “Bye, Daddy,” Steph followed. Her eyes never left the phone.
    He gave his Grace a kiss on her tiny strawberry lips and did the same to Jude.
    “We gonna be all right, Dale?” she whispered.
    He said they’d be just fine. Told Jude to be sure and get Steph her hair spray.
    He left the house and went to work. Already wondering if he’d made a mistake, and choosing to believe he hadn’t.
    Banks met Hastings by the antique water fountain that was known to give cool water with rust.
    “How’d you do last night, kid?”
    Bo said he hit three home runs and a double.
    Banks told Hastings that was bullshit. Asked him how many beers he’d had.
    “Relax, boss. Had the old lady drive me home.”
    Banks smiled. Hastings was a good kid. Big and strong with a bull head and an iron will. His old man had been a good cop but could not hold things together. Started drinking hard, harder than a man should drink when he wore a badge. His paperwork got sloppy; he started boozing on the job. Then he would drink