Read Online Drenched in Light by Lisa Wingate - Free Book Online Page B

here.
    “Sometimes I need it quiet, that’s all,” she added. “They’re always watching me here.”
    “The other students?” I interpreted, and she nodded.
    “And the teachers. I’m not used to it. I worry what they’re thinking when they look at me.” A ladybug crawled across her shoe, and she paused to watch it, looking peaceful for a moment before the arch of her dark brows straightened again, and she slid her foot to the file cabinet so the ladybug could crawl to safety. “My mind says it’s bad stuff—like I’m stupid and ugly and I shouldn’t be here. Karen—ummm, my foster mom—tells me I shouldn’t listen to that stuff when I hear it in my mind. I know she’s right. Grandma Rose says just ignore it and go on. She says you can’t know what anybody else is thinking, and anyway, ugly thoughts come from ugly minds.”
    I chuckled. “It sounds like Grandma Rose gives some good advice.”
    She fluttered a smile. “Grandma Rose don’t”—a quick shake of her head faded the smile—“doesn’t put up with much from people. I wish she was here to talk to Mrs. Morris.”
    “I imagine that would be quite a conversation.” I pictured the evil Frau of English getting a no-nonsense lesson in kindness, civility, and treating other people the way she’d like to be treated. Then I remembered that, according to the paperwork, Dell’s biological grandmother was deceased. “Grandma Rose isn’t the grandmother you lived with in Hindsville?”
    “Huh-uh,” she replied, focusing out the window again, seeming as far away as the wispy white clouds over the Kansas City skyline. “She’s my foster mom’s grandma. She lived across the river from my real granny’s house. Grandma Rose is how I met my foster parents in the first place. They knew me because I’d stay at Grandma Rose’s farm a lot when my real granny was sick and stuff. I think Grandma Rose was the reason James and Karen wanted to be my parents after my real granny died. Grandma Rose is more like a grandma than my real granny was. She understands stuff, you know?”
    I nodded, thinking of my Grandma Rice, and how close we were during the years I was staying with her and going to Harrington. Of all the people I lied to about my eating disorder, she was the one I felt the most guilty about deceiving. Grandma Rice was closest to my heart. She sat through hours of rehearsals, never missed a dance performance, helped me with my homework, and fixed the four-course lunches I threw in the trash every day. In some ways I was glad she’d passed away before the truth came out. “Grandmas are good that way, sometimes,” I agreed.
    “She told me I ought to write it down when I think things that bother me.” With a shrug, Dell indicated the notebook papers on the desk.
    Pulling them closer, I pretended to read the words again, but they were already etched in my head. “So, if Grandma Rose were here, what do you think she’d say about your skipping the Red Day assembly today?”
    Dell considered the floor under my desk for a moment. “I dunno.”
    “How do you feel about it?”
    “About what?”
    “Skipping the assembly. How do you feel about it?”
    Brows knitted, she shrugged, as if she couldn’t imagine that her feelings would matter. “I just couldn’t go, you know? It makes me think about . . . things.”
    “About your mother?”
    “My real mom, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t like to talk about her.” Her lips trembled, and she pulled them into a firm line. Focusing on her hands, she picked mercilessly at her short fingernails. “Karen wants me to talk about her sometimes, and I tell her I can’t remember anything. My granny took all the pictures of Mama and burned them after Mama gave Angelo to his daddy. They had a big fight, and then the guy with the long black hair came to pick Mama up. Mama wanted to take me with them, but Granny said no. Mama just loaded her stuff in the truck, and before she left, she picked me up me