Little Black Dress with Bonus Material Read Free Page A

to change from her suit and high heels, merely switched off the lights and left. She got into her car, driving off in gently falling snow toward the tiny Missouri river town she hadn’t seen since her father’s death. She didn’t turn on the radio. She wouldn’t have heard the music if she had, not over the words that kept rolling ’round and ’round her skull:
    I’m so sorry, Miss Ashton, but your mother’s had a stroke, and she may never be the same again.

Chapter 3
Evie
    A s much as I wanted to wake up, I couldn’t do it.
    Something had settled heavily upon my eyes, keeping them closed, and it weighed upon my body as well so that I could only lie immobile and without a voice to speak, a veritable lost soul.
    Stranger still—though I was sure it was a trick of my addled mind—I suddenly felt as though I were swimming in the Mississippi River, something I hadn’t done since I was thirteen, when my father took Anna and me to a rocky spot on the bank about midway between Blue Hills and Ste. Genevieve, and he told us to swim across to Mosquito Island and back. We were capable enough in the water, having spent several weeks each summer in a rental at the Lake of the Ozarks and the rest of the school break splashing around at the Blue Hills Social Club in its Olympic-sized pool.
    But taking on the river was another beast entirely. How benign it could look when its muddy surface lay still as glass; so deceptively calm despite the angry undertow beneath. I’d heard tales of men twice my size getting swept away by the currents, sometimes never to be seen again. So performing this odd rite of passage of Daddy’s had frightened me, even more, apparently, than my ten-year-old sister.
    â€œIt isn’t that far,” Anna told me as we’d shivered in our bathing suits, looking out across the water, “you stick close, and I’ll stay by you in case you need me.”
    â€œAll right,” I’d agreed.
    Mud had sucked at my toes as I’d followed Anna, wading into the brown froth, hating the thought of putting my head beneath it. But when she pushed off and started to crawl, arm over arm, kicking and kicking, it gave me the courage I needed.
    There were no boats around, nothing to hinder our path, and we made it across to the island’s sandbar easily enough. It wasn’t until we were halfway back that I felt something tug at my legs, a pull of tide below the surface that I couldn’t see.
    I tried kicking harder, but I went nowhere, and then it quickly began to push me away from my sister, moving me downstream.
    â€œEvie, fight! You’re stronger than you think!” Daddy shouted from across the way, waving his arms and clambering over the rocks so as not to lose sight of me.
    But as hard as I swam, the current had me beat.
    Please, don’t let me die, I thought before I saw my sister swimming toward me, moving steadily through the water, unafraid of being swept away, too.
    â€œI’m here, Evie, I’m here!” I heard Anna’s voice from somewhere near as I tried not to panic and keep my legs kicking, fighting the undertow and my worst fears.
    And I wondered why she would want to save me when I hadn’t tried to save her, when I’d been more concerned with raising a child than saving her sanity.
    I was tired, so unbelievably tired.
    Who would miss me if I left this world? I thought sadly and stopped treading, letting my limbs pull me down like dead weight.
    As I sank deeper into the cold, I sensed myself settling into a place of limbo, that near-death space I’d heard others babble about, although I’d never believed it existed. I flashed back on my life, the years rushing through my mind in bits and pieces. I saw faces and colors, heard voices and melodies, and suffered all the love and disappointment that had touched my heart since the day I was born.
    What more could I possibly give?
    For an instant, I