Read Online A Heartbeat Away by Eleanor Jones - Free Book Online Page A

but it was hard.
    Mrs. Brown always stayed for at least an hour, and Daniel and I used to go outside and throw a ball for Fudge. He never tired of running for that ball, and when we went back into the house, he’d be so exhausted he’d flop on the floor, his tongue hanging out, until it was time to go home.
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    One Friday in spring, when golden daffodils were blooming everywhere and the birds sang sweet songs of promise from way up in the budding treetops, we burst into the house with our grocery bags to find my mom sobbing by the unlit fire. She was on her knees with a letter in her hand and her eyes were red-rimmed.
    I looked at the envelope she had discarded in the hearth and realized that it was exactly the same as all the others that had arrived lately—the ones that my dad always burned. He would run down the stairs while my mom was still in bed, pick up the mail from where it lay on the mat and throw most of the letters, unopened, into the fire.
    â€œDamn bills,” he would curse as yellow flames licked away at the officially typed writing. Then he would grab his coat from the peg by the door and march out of the house, banging the door behind him. Sometimes after one of those outbursts he would stay away all day and all night, and sometimes he would come home in the early hours of the morning, singing and shouting his way down the street. Whatever he did, it always made my mom cry, and now that she knew about the letters, I was afraid of what she might do
    I looked at her crumpled gray face, all blurry with tears, and repeated my vow—the one that I had made to myself on the day Mrs. Brown had brought me home.
    Daniel and I stood open-mouthed as Mrs. Brown untangled the letter from her trembling fingers. She read it through with a grave frown on her face, and for an instant I thought she, too, was going to cry. Then her mouth set into a thin straight line and she folded the crisp white paper several times before placing it deliberately on the tabletop.
    â€œNow, come on, Mary,” she said. “Crying isn’t going to help, is it?”
    My mom moaned.
    â€œI think I’ll just end it all, Edna,” she sobbed.
    Mrs. Brown tut-tutted and glanced at Daniel and me.
    â€œWhy don’t you go outside and play with Fudge, children,” she told us firmly. But I held on to Daniel’s hand and made him wait with me outside the door. It was my mom and I wanted to see what was going to happen.
    â€œLet’s look through the rest of this mail,” suggested Mrs. Brown in her best matter-of-fact tone of voice, “and then I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.”
    Why was it that grown-ups always thought drinking tea would help?
    Daniel and I stayed close to the door, straining our ears, but all we heard was the crackle of paper as Mrs. Brown sorted through the letters. When her firm voice cut through the silence again, it made us both jump.
    â€œHave you read this one, Mary?”
    My mom didn’t reply, and she asked her again with a tinge of impatience.
    â€œHave you read it? It’s from your sister. I didn’t know you had a sister.”
    I didn’t know that my mom had a sister, either, and when I nudged Daniel and shrugged, he pulled a face at me and I started to giggle.
    â€œOutside now, children,” ordered Mrs. Brown. We sucked in our breaths and stayed very quiet until Fudge went racing past us into the living room; then Mrs. Brown came and found us and sent us out into the garden.
    I didn’t feel like playing because all I could think about was that letter. What if it made my mom ill again? What would my dad do when he got home? What if we lost our house the way we had before?
    Daniel and I sat on the wall in the warm spring sunshine as Fudge ran up and down by himself. We didn’t really need to talk, because Daniel always knew what I was thinking. After a while he jumped down and looked at me with the bright expression on his sunny