Forbidden Read Free Page A

flames, his favorite part of the fire, the wild and dangerous part of it.
    Jesus Christ , he thought, while his niece waited quietly. How could he possibly begin to answer that? How could he find a way to atone, to even explain? My own kids were little too, and the farm…I didn’t make time…it’s not my fault…
    For a moment he was furious at his father for dying before resolving things with Michelle. More than anything he wished Matthew was home, but he’d been unable to even make contact with his youngest brother today. Finally he said, “Bryce, I wish I could answer that, but I can’t right now. Just please come.” And then, his throat closing swiftly, he said, “Good-bye.”
    She hung up, stomped 12 feet, and slammed open her mother’s bedroom door.
    Michelle didn’t look at her, but immediately said, “No.”
    She was digging through the top drawer of her dresser. A large pile of bras and panties covered the floor. Bryce stared between this and her mother, who angled one shoulder slightly away from her. Michelle was tiny, and so slim she wore children’s sizes. Her frailness was somehow exaggerated by her snow-pale skin. Bent over, with strands of hair clinging to her damp cheeks, Michelle looked so ashen and vulnerable that Bryce swallowed the angry words in her throat and instead sank to the threadbare satin blanket on the double bed.
    â€œNo, what?” she asked quietly. Michelle paused in her rummaging, then reached into her denim purse and extracted a smoke and her lighter. She sat down beside her daughter and lit up, then wrapped one arm about her updrawn knees and drew deeply on her long 100. It was clearly a defensive posture, and Bryce waited a moment before repeating the question.
    Instead of answering, Michelle suddenly stretched her right leg and poked at the mound of undergarments on the floor, then leaned and plucked something from the lacy depths.
    â€œThere it is,” she said around the filter, and studied a small black and white snapshot for a second before handing it over to Bryce.
    â€œIt’s you and…your mom?” Bryce hazarded a guess, bringing the snapshot closer to her eyes. Summertime somewhere, long ago, because Michelle couldn’t have been more than two or three. The kind of late-afternoon sunlight that made Bryce’s throat ache shimmered over the older woman’s pale hair. Tiny Michelle was reaching for that halo of light; neither of them were looking directly at the camera, but instead at one another, and the mother’s face bore such an expression of tender devotion that anguish further seared the back of Bryce’s throat, catching her off guard. But she swallowed the pain instantly.
    Michelle took the photo back into her own hand and blew smoke, but carefully, not letting any touch the old paper.
    â€œYeah,” she sighed, and closed her eyes. “She was really beautiful, wasn’t she?”
    Bryce, always suspiscious of what seemed to be a heart-to-heart tone in her mother’s voice, only nodded.
    â€œI’m not going,” Michelle said after a protracted silence had passed.
    Bryce, who had been studying the wood paneling opposite her and wondering when was the last time she’d been in Michelle’s room for anything, bit down hard on her bottom lip.
    â€œWhy?” It hadn’t worked with her uncle, but it was all she could manage just now. She didn’t take her eyes from the wall.
    Michelle’s knees drew up again. “I’m not ready. I tried going back once, when you were three. It was a fucking disaster.”
    They hadn’t exchanged this many words in months. Bryce dared a peep at her mother. “Your brother mentioned that…he said it was your mom’s funeral.”
    Michelle laughed suddenly and harshly, emitting a cloud of smoke. With a vicious twist, she ground out the cigarette in the blue ceramic ashtray on her nightstand,