Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) Read Free Page B

around his nose, climbing the tower of his
shiny face. I wonder if his dad had such a large nose. I hope it isn’t from our
mom’s side. His strands of hair are like tracks, combed back on his thinning
scalp. He must have used hairspray.
    “Hey, kiddo.”
    Thom walks so quickly I wonder if he forgets I’m
in a wheelchair. At the end of the hall, he looks back and waits until the
nurse and I are within ten feet again.
     “Lorna has been getting your room ready for you.”
    “No.” The word comes out of me with a lungful of
air.
    “Don’t be like that. She’s been working hard to do
this for you.” He looks irritated, but then glances at the nurse and tries to
smile like it was a joke.
    “What did she do?”
    “Just cleaned it for you, organized it.”
    “Thom, no…”
    He bends over and uses his big brother voice.
“Listen, you really need to be more appreciative of the things she does for
you.”
    I guess we are done with that subject. Sometimes
it seems like he really sees; sometimes he is on my side. It hurts to breathe
when he doesn’t.
    The nurse and I wait just inside the revolving
doors while Thom pulls the Firebird around. The faces that enter and exit wear
fear. I’m not sorry to leave this place.
    “I have to make a stop on the way home.” He pats
my knee when I climb into the car. “I spent the whole day at the unemployment
office.”
    “Okay.” I rest my bandage against the cold window.
That’s why he’s sober.

Chapter 3
    Thom shuffles around the braided rug between the
kitchen and his recliner. The remote waits on the stained, blue arm. He plops
down with a newly purchased bottle of White Lighting Vodka hidden under his arm
and lets out a satisfied sigh when he pulls the lever and his footrest lifts.
    I decide to go see what Lorna has done. Our
trailer is really nice. If anything, my sister-in-law has a talent with dried
and silk flower arrangements. Her job at Discount Crafts helps fund her hobby.
I wish she worked evenings though. Then we’d miss each other completely.
    My bed’s made, but she took one of my blankets. I
dump the contents of my backpack on top. She stacked my library books against
the wall. I start to add Aesop’s Fables, which I finished in the hospital, but
my usual system of organizing books in three piles—finished, unfinished, and
don’t want to finish—has been changed to one useless stack. I grip Aesop like a
security blanket and turn to the closet. The metal hangers are evenly spaced so
the clothes don’t touch. In the dresser, I lost a drawer. It now holds a glue
gun, puffy paint and other craft items.
    Not as bad as I—wait. My metal music stand is gone…my
flute too?
    I race to the living room.
    “Thom, where’s my flute?”
    “I dunno.”
    I don’t know whether I’m more panicked about the
only item I truly own, given to me by my father—not Thom and Lorna—or the fifteen-hundred
in cash I had hidden in the false bottom of the case.
    I danced for nothing. My room—it’s my room again
now that I don’t have money for my own place—looks hideously barren. How did I
not notice the flute missing when I first entered? “Thom, she took it!”
    Thom looks up from The Montel Williams Show to a
real-life, sordid family drama.
    “I’m sure she didn’t.”
    At least he didn’t deny that I had one. Kudos for
big brother.
    I hold the hardback up to hide my face, resisting
the urge to smack my head a few times. “My dad gave that to me.”
    “Yeah, I know Mom married your dad.” He takes
another long draft from the bottle. In my fury, I have accidently mentioned the
one thing that always steals his sympathy. The recliner chair clanks forward.
    “Why you care about a carved stick with holes in
it, from a guy who beat you up…”
    He continues muttering and walks down the hall. I
wait to hear the creak next to my bedroom door. Of course, it doesn’t. He won’t
go verify, he’ll just hide in his and Lorna’s room.  
    A car drives up and a