Mourning Song Read Online Free Page B

much. I’ve never been anyplace except my grandparents’ farm in Iowa.”
    “You’re one up on me—I’ve never been to Iowa!”
    “Maybe it’s true, a person always wants what he doesn’t have.”
    “Profound.” Austin let out a low whistle. “You’ve just summed up thousands of years of the human predicament.”
    They rode in silence for a while. Finally, Austin asked, “So, what’s the matter? Is it Cassie?”
    Dani sighed. “Cassie’s not going to graduate with her class. Mom asked the school board, but they said she’d missed so much school—she hasn’t done much of anything academically since she got sick in January.”
    “That’s lousy,” Austin grumbled.
    Dani shrugged, although she’d been furious when her mother first told her. “Mom was upset,but she didn’t press the point and decided not to make a case because then Cassie might find out she’s dying, and Mom doesn’t want her to know it yet.”
    “What did your mother tell her?”
    “That she could make up the work over the summer.”
    “And Cassie bought that?”
    “The medication Cassie takes makes her spacey. She just accepted it.”
    “School will be out soon,” Austin observed. “Maybe the summer will go better for her.”
    Dani longed for the end of school, but also dreaded it. Every day that passed, meant one day less for her sister. “Mom’s insisting that Cassie stay on the radiation, even though it keeps her sick as a dog. She wants to continue with treatments till the bitter end.”
    “I guess it makes her feel like she’s doing something,” Austin ventured. “Sometimes doing
anything
feels better than doing nothing.”
    Dani realized how much it bothered her that there was nothing to do—nothing that
she
could do for her sister. A complete stranger had offered Cassie an enormous amount of money. Sure, it was Cassie’s to spend, but maybe she could help Cassie figure out something worth spending it on, something only for Cassie.
    Austin pulled into the parking lot and found aspace. “You getting out,” Austin asked, “or are you daydreaming?”
    “I hate going in there,” Dani grumbled as she stared over at the school.
    “Everybody’s sick of school this time of the year. Just a few more weeks till summer vacation. You can make it.”
    “It’s not that. It’s so many things, but I can’t discuss them now.”
    “What is it?”
    “Well at school, it’s the way kids act around me. Whenever I walk by Cassie’s friends in the halls, I hear them whispering about her. It makes me angry. Even her close friends don’t come by the hospital much anymore. I think it’s mean and cruel. It’s not as if they’re going to catch her tumor. Don’t they know how lonely she gets?”
    “Don’t be too hard on everybody,” Austin said.
    She whipped around, glaring at him. “How can you defend them? You’ve heard them talking about her—as if she were some kind of freak.”
    “Don’t get mad at me. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”
    Grudgingly, she agreed. “I’m not mad at you. Just them.”
    “Most people—especially kids—don’t know how to act around someone who’s really sick. No one’s ever taught them.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve grown up in a lot of countries,” he explained. “A lot of cultures. In America, kids never think about sickness and dying. They all think they’re going to live forever. You go to movies where people get blown away like dust. Then, a week later, you see the same actor walking around in another flick until he gets blown away all over again.”
    “Nothing seems real. Is that what you’re saying?” Dani asked.
    Austin’s face turned serious as he continued. “We were in India for a year, and I saw a funeral procession go by every day. It was as common as a traffic jam is over here. You develop a different perspective on things like that when they’re a regular part of your life. You don’t freak out. It’s just the way things are. People are