Healing Stones Read Free

rolling. But I could also hear the whine of uncertainty, even over the siren now screaming in the distance.
    â€œRachel was supposed to take me home from rehearsal, but I guess she forgot me. Could you call me when you get this?” The whine reached a peak and fell into a teeth-clenched finish. “Never mind. I guess I’ll have to call Christopher.”
    I searched the screen. She’d left the message at eight—forty-five minutes ago. Fighting back visions of child abductors in black vans stalking Cedar Heights Junior High, I shoved the Jeep into gear, then shoved it out again. I dialed my home phone.
    â€œYou so owe me,” Christopher said, in lieu of “hello.”
    â€œDid you pick Jayne up?”
    â€œLike I said, you owe me.”
    â€œIs she okay?”
    â€œShe’s in her room with the lights out and that music on that sounds like some chick needs Prozac.” Christopher gave the hard laugh he’d recently adopted. “Which is what she always does, so, yeah, she’s okay. Where were you?”
    I was suddenly aware of the nakedness under my jacket.
    â€œI had a meeting,” I said. “Has your dad called?”
    â€œI called him to see if he was okay.”
    â€œWhy?” I said. My chest tightened automatically—the Pavlovian reaction of the firefighter’s wife.
    â€œFire
at that 76 station on Mile Hill Road. Heard on the radio on my way home from the library. They said it was contained, so I called him.”
    I told myself I was imagining the innuendo of accusation in his voice, the Why didn’t you call him? I chalked it up to the overall attitude of superiority my son had taken on now that he was a college freshman and knew far more than his father and I could ever hope to. I was forty-two with a doctorate in theological studies, but Christopher Costanas could reduce me to the proverbial clueless blonde.
    â€œHe said they got another call and he’s going out on it,” Christopher said. “Even though his shift’s over—you know Dad.”
    Thank you, God , I thought as I hung up. Although God helping me keep Rich out of the way until I could find out what had just happened wasn’t something even I could fathom. Funny. All through my affair with Zach, I’d continued to talk to my God, asking His forgiveness over and over, every time I left the yacht club, knowing I’d be back. Now that I’d ended it, I couldn’t face Him. In His place was a rising sense of unease.
    Rich’s Harley wasn’t in the garage when I got home. Christopher answered with a grunt when I said good night outside his door. I tiptoed into Jayne’s dark bedroom, but all I saw was a trail of strawberryblonde hair on top of the covers and a rail-like lump underneath them. I kissed the cheek that was no longer plump and rosy, now that my daughter had abruptly turned into a teenager. She didn’t stir, even when I whispered, “I’m sorry about tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
    Whatever “tomorrow” was going to look like. The uneasiness rose into full-blown nausea as I pulled on an oversized Covenant Christian College nightshirt and crawled into our empty bed. Tomorrow would be the first day of a new existence—without Zach to make me okay. When I woke up, I would be completely Rich Costanas’s wife again, and nothing would be any different from the first moment when I’d admitted to myself that I’d fallen in love with someone else.
    Tomorrow I would still try to be cheerful as Rich silently, sullenly sat like he was walled into a dark room he wouldn’t let any of us into. I would kiss him on the cheek before I left for work, and he would mumble “have a good day.” He would go to the station for the evening shift before I came home, leaving no note, making no phone call, giving me vague, monosyllabic answers when I called him. I’d stopped calling three months