Healing Stones Read Free Page A

ago.
    Tomorrow I would do the right thing: give up a relationship that made me feel alive and loved and necessary, and attempt to revive what Rich and I once had, before September 11, 2001, drained the life out of us. I’d found a reason to keep breathing. I wasn’t sure Rich ever would.
    And yet, tomorrow I would try. Only it would be a different person doing the trying. I was now a person who’d manufactured lies so she could meet her lover. A person who’d stripped herself down to betrayal, just to feel connected again. A person who’d been caught in the flash of a camera with her clothes on the floor around her.
    I churned in the bed, tangling my ankles in a knot of sheets. I had to see Zach and find out what had gone down. And I had to make sure that he knew we were over—and I was really gone.
    Though I pretended not to be, I was still awake when Rich fell into bed beside me, smelling of smoke and the Irish Spring attempt to wash it away.
    â€œHi, hon,” he said.
    I stiffened. Why did he choose this night to sound like the old Rich? His voice hadn’t held that smushy quality for—what—two years? It sounded the way it used to when he wanted me to rub his head or make him a fried egg sandwich.
    â€œHow was your shift?” I said.
    â€œI’ve got bad news for you.”
    My eyes came open. The answers I’d heard for months had tended toward It was all right or The same as always . They always implied that I’d asked a stupid question that was more than annoying. I propped up on one elbow and tried to sound sleepy. “What happened?”
    â€œWe hadda fight a boat fire—down at Port Orchard Yacht Club.”
    I curled my fingers around the pillowcase.
    â€œDoes your friend—that guy who took us out that one day— does he still own that Chris-Craft?”
    He didn’t know. He didn’t know.
    â€œUh, yeah,” I said—and then my heart clutched at itself. “ His boat?”
    â€œHad to be—total loss too.” Rich punched at his pillow and wrapped it around his neck in his usual preparation for going into a post-fire coma.
    But I had to ask.
    â€œIs Zach—was he hurt?”
    â€œDunno. He wasn’t around. I don’t think he was there when it started.” He gave a long, raspy sigh. “It was a mistake to ever leave New York.”
    I struggled to keep up. “Tell me some more,” I said.
    â€œI don’t belong here, Demitria. I’m a fish outta water.”
    How many times had I turned myself inside out to get him to open up? Six months ago, I’d have had our bags half-packed already, willing to do anything to bring him out of his cave. Now I said nothing, because I felt nothing—except terror at the vision of Zach as a charred version of his former self, buried in the rubble of The Testament .
    Rich sighed heavily and flopped over, leaving me on the other side of his wall of a back, the one I’d stopped trying to hoist myself over. “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” he said.
    I sank back stiffly onto my own pillow. “Not tonight,” I said.
    â€œI didn’t mean tonight.”
    There was the edge that implied I was of no help to him whatsoever, and why did I even think I could be?
    I turned my back and moved to the far edge of the bed.
    The next day couldn’t dawn soon enough. Most of the night I watched the digits on the clock change with maddening slowness, and planned how to get to Zach before I lost my mind.
    I was up, dressed, and making coffee by six thirty. Fortunately— and not surprisingly—I didn’t hear a sound out of Christopher, but Jayne slipped into the kitchen in ghostly fashion at six thirty-five. Guilt scratched at me like an impatient dog.
    â€œHey, girlfriend,” I said. “You’re up early.”
    â€œMom, I’m always up at this time. I have to catch the bus at seven.”
    I didn’t