Sister Mine Read Free Page A

assholes who get in the passing lane and don’t pass. He doesn’t respond at all when I ask him if he wants to hit a McDonald’s drive-thru and get an Egg McMuffin.
    â€œWe’re almost there,” I tell him when we’re about ten miles south of Centresburg. “Do you want me to drop you somewhere in Jolly Mount or do you want me to take you straight to your motel?”
    I glance in my rearview mirror. He begins packing away papers in his briefcase.
    â€œWhat’s your name again?” he asks without looking up.
    â€œShae-Lynn.”
    â€œRight. Shae-Lynn. You can take me to my hotel for now, but I was wondering if you’d be available if I need you during the next couple days to drive me around?”
    â€œI might be.”
    â€œI’d pay you well.”
    I make up my mind instantly to do it, not only because I need the money, but because I want to know what this guy is doing here.
    â€œI guess I can make myself available,” I tell him.
    â€œGood,” he says.
    He clicks the briefcase shut and finally looks up, but not at me. When he speaks again, he’s looking out the window.
    â€œI imagine you know a lot of people around here,” he says.
    â€œYou could say that.”
    â€œDo you know a Shannon Penrose?”
    At the mention of the name, I temporarily forget where I am and what I’m doing and almost drive off the road. I glance in the rearview mirror, and he’s giving me a strange look.
    â€œI…,” I start to say, “I don’t think so. No.”
    â€œDo you know any other Penroses? I’ve checked phone listings for towns in the area, and I couldn’t find any. Although a lot of people are unlisted these days.”
    â€œWell,” I say, quickly, while gathering my wits again, “Penrose is a common name around here.”
    â€œI don’t think she’s lived around here for a long time, but I know Jolly Mount is her hometown.”
    â€œIs that why you’re here? You’re trying to find her?”
    â€œI have something very important to tell her. It’s good news, I assure you.”
    â€œSorry.”
    I don’t trust him. That’s why I lie, even though the truth wouldn’t help him.
    I finish the drive to the Comfort Inn with my heart pounding heavily in my chest.
    Before he gets out of the car, he asks me if I’ll drive him to Jolly Mount tonight, maybe take him to a bar or someplace where he can meet some locals. His word: locals. He lowers his voice when he says it and uses a dramatic courtroom pause as if he were addressing a jury that’s nodding off.
    I agree. After he gets out of the car, I watch him walk into the Comfort Inn. Then I pull into the parking lot of the Ruby Tuesday next door and sit.
    I don’t fall apart and begin to cry. I don’t get angry. I don’t allow myself to feel guilt or pain. I understand that I will have to deal with all of these emotions eventually, but for now I close my eyes and take deep breaths while trying to find the safe place in my soul.
    It’s a small, cozy room full of plush, overstuffed furniture, with a fire blazing in a fireplace and a velvet-eared puppy asleep on a rug on the floor, twitching in his dreams. On the table is a deep blue china plate the color of a predawn sky as the sun’s glow from behind the mountains begins to lighten the black overhead. It’s heaped with some of my mom’s homemade cookies: chocolate chip, pecan tassies, and peanut butter thumbprints with Hershey’s kisses stuck in the middle. Beside it sits a cup of hot chocolate with mounds of whipped cream. Outside a storm rages, but I know it can’t touch me. The room is made of stone and has no doors. The more the wind blows and the thunder rumbles and the rain lashes the only window, the happier I am.
    It’s the place I always went to as a child whenever I missed my mom too much or when my dad’s eyes lost their