Home to Harmony Read Free

happen, including getting David some counseling. Aurora had told her about a therapist in nearby New Mirage, which was a lucky break in such a minuscule town.
    “Christ, kids are kids, Crystal. They’re not all taking Uzis into social studies class.”
    “Aurora…” Christine shot her mother a look. They’d discussed this over the phone, since Christine was concerned about her mother’s permissive style and the free-to-be atmosphere at Harmony House.
    “Okay,” Aurora said. “Your mother wants me to remind you to obey the rules. There aren’t many, but the ones we have we mean. No fighting. No smarting off…well, maybe a little smarting off. No drugs, of course. A fresh start, right? Pull your weight with chores. We all share and care. That’s our motto. Always has been.”
    She nodded at the commune rules posted next to the chore board, where everyone was assigned duties. It looked as though there were only a half-dozen residents at the moment.
    “Are we agreed?” Christine said to David. They had to be on the same page if they had any hope of her plan working.
    “Chill, okay?” David said. “I got it.”
    “We’ll have fun anyway,” Aurora pretended to whisper behind her hand. That was typical Aurora. When she’d visited, she’d let David sip mescal, skip dinner and stay up all night watching vampire movies that gave him nightmares for a week.
    David, of course, had adored her.
    “Here we go.” Bogie set down a plate of creamy cheese and big triangles of pita bread.
    “Sit down, you two,” Aurora said, spreading blobs of the cheese onto the pita, then handing them out. “Eat, Bogie,” she said. “Since the radiation, he hardly eats.”
    “I do fine,” he said. “I have…uh…medicine.”
    Christine felt a twinge of worry. Bogie grew a few marijuana plants for medicinal use, since pot was good for pain suppression, nausea and poor appetite. He’d promised to never smoke around David and to keep his half-hidden grow-room locked.
    In the old days pot had been everywhere at Harmony House, a fact that had annoyed Christine immensely, since it led to so much silly, lazy behavior in the grown-ups.
    Christine took a bite of the pita. The cheese was lemony and so delicate it melted like butter on her tongue. “Mmm,” she said, then sipped the rose-hip tea, which tasted fresh and healthy.
    David grimaced at the tea and barely nibbled the pita. He was a junk-food maniac, so the grow-your-own meals would be an adjustment for him. She’d take him to Parsons Foods in town for a stash of processed sugar and sodium nitrates. She had enough issues with David. Nutrition could wait.
    “You’ll love Doctor Mike, David,” Aurora said. “He’s brilliant. So intuitive. He sees right into you.”
    David shrugged, not enthused about the counseling. The guy would have to be good to get through to him.
    “If you don’t like him, we’ve got Doctor B.,” Aurora said.
    “Doctor B.?” Christine asked.
    “Marcus Barnard. He’s a big shrink in LA. He’s working on a book while he’s here.”
    So the man in the garden was a psychiatrist. That certainly explained his cool formality and intense gaze, along with his attempt to interpret Aurora’s obstinacy for her.
    “He’s a hard worker, too,” Bogie said. “A good thing since we’re low on residents right now. Lucy—she runs the clay works operation—thinks you should hire part-time kids, Crystal.”
    “Crystal doesn’t need to mess with any hiring,” Aurora grumbled. “I’ll be back in a week.”
    “The heart doctor said six weeks,” Bogie said quietly.
    “We’re here to work, Aurora,” Christine said. Bogie had warned her that her mother might resist help.
    “You’ll have your hands full with the animals, the gardens and Bogie’s greenhouse,” Aurora said.
    “Let’s just see how it goes.” If she had to hog-tie her mother to her bed to make her take it easy, she would. She’d need her A game to manage Aurora, that was