Read Online Coming Home by David Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

her arms, as if defending herself.
    A smiling blond woman leaned against the Russian olive near Jessie’s bedroom window. Mom was wearing a light blue sweater and a navy blue skirt. Her skin was milky smooth, her eyes soft, compassionate and playful. Seeing the picture only fueled Jessie’s sense of loss … and her anger toward the person responsible for it.
    Eyes focused now on the road, she felt her throat close again. She blinked furiously.
    … “She was so pretty,” Betty had said as she and Jessie examined that particular photo on the wall. “She and your dad used to take walks around the lake. They’d stop by the shop, holding hands, Frank’s face just beaming! Olivia would be holding you in her arms, back when you were a tiny thing. Frank absolutely adored your mother.”
    Pain emanated from Betty’s eyes. She seemed to study Jessie and then smiled proudly. “You look just like her, you know.”
    “Thank you,” Jessie replied, struggling to maintain her composure.
    Unexpectedly, Betty said the strangest thing, “Looking so much like her, it must feel as if she’s always with you somehow… .”
    Now Jessie pondered the comment again as she drove. What a weird thing to say. Couldn’t anyone say that about one’s parents? But as far as resembling her mother, her appearance was where it ended. Her mother was a saint and everyone knew it. Jessie, however, had her father’s temperament. “Thank heavens she looks like her mother,” she’d once heard a cousin remark during a family gathering when he didn’t think Jessie was within earshot. He finished with, “Because she sulks just like her father,” and then laughed at his little joke. She was ten or so at the time but old enough to get it. She’d stormed off, effectively proving his point.
    Jessie passed the Air Force Academy to the west of I-25, noting the expansive growth of neighborhoods on the opposite side. She glanced at her cell phone on the passenger seat, haunted by the once-recurring habit of Brandon’s daily call, reminding herself again that they weren’t going to Oregon together.
    “It’ll take a while to sink in,” Darlene had told her.
    I’m a pro at this stuff, Jessie thought.
    She wished she could phone her mother. No matter the triumph or tragedy throughout her life, that was always the first thought. After dinner with Brandon she would have cried on her mom’s shoulder and Mom would have understood, just as she always did.
    Every turning point in life was another reminder that her mom was gone.
    As a teenager she’d had persistent dreams of Mom tucking her in … walking along the beach … swinging at the park. While they were the happiest dreams, they were also the most painful upon awakening. For years it seemed as if Mom had never died. Jessie often awakened breathless, panicked, her grief renewed again.
    To think she’d run away from her grandmother’s house five times, each time fighting “extradition” back to her grandmother’s care. She was finally made a ward of the state for her own wellbeing. She spent the remainder of her adolescent years in one foster home after another, all with predictable results.
    Sometimes her foster parents were only interested in the monthly paycheck, which suited Jessie fine because they were the types who would leave her alone. Other times, her guardians seemed interested in getting to know her, and it didn’t take Jessie long to disabuse them of that foolish notion. And the idea of getting too attached to her foster parents’ “real” children was out of the question. She would go to school, then come home and hide in her room, doing her homework or reading a novel.
    When not in school or in her room, she spent time at some therapist’s office, court-ordered to “assist her in emotional healing.” They’d all insisted on dredging up her childhood, as if by remembering the details she might finally forget. What a strange idea, she’d thought at the time. Rarely did she