Read Online Fade to Black by Wendy Corsi Staub - Free Book Online

has almost felt compelled to confront them.
    But she has always held back, primarily for his sake, yet partly for her own.
    After all, his grandparents are all Manny has, and they do love him—even Manny has admitted as much. His grandmother, who is nearly crippled from arthritis, still manages to make him his favorite devil’s food cupcakes with fudge frosting every chance she gets, and his grandfather, whose heart is growing weaker every day, painstakingly built him a polished wooden sled from secondhand scrap lumber last winter, carving the boy’s initials into the underside, along with the phrase “made with love by Gramps.”
    But the Souzas believe in old-fashioned discipline, which in Elizabeth’s opinion sometimes seems to qualify as borderline child abuse. She knows from experience.
    Her own mother had beat her, yes. Not to discipline her, but out of teenage rage against the child she perceived as having tied her down, ruined her life.
    But Vera, her grandmother, had been quick to spank her behind or smack her across the face. When Elizabeth talked back, Vera had often snatched up the nearest object—a lamp, a toaster, the vast leatherbound family Bible—and sent it sailing toward her impudent granddaughter. The physical discipline wasn’t the same as what Becky had done to her. But to a child, the line between discipline and abuse might as well not exist.
    Oh, yes, Elizabeth can relate to Manny.
    Still, she’s aware that the alternative to his grandparents’ custody—a foster home—might be no better for him.
    She knows this, too, from experience. There was a time, when she was around Manny’s age, when her grandmother was hospitalized for over a month after a sudden, serious heart attack—a prelude to the massive one that came later, ending her life.
    There was no one to look after Elizabeth in Vera’s absence, and she had been temporarily placed with a foster family. It wasn’t an experience she had ever wanted to repeat, or would wish on anyone else. The foster parents made no bones about the fact that they were in it for the subsidy money, and the place was overcrowded with problem kids who lied and stole, including a teenage boy whose leering glances gave her the creeps.
    No, she doesn’t believe Manny would be better off in a foster home.
    Nor does she want to file a report against his grandparents and risk attracting the attention of the authorities. She won’t do that unless she absolutely has to—if she feels the child is truly at risk.
    So when Manny turns up with a fresh slap mark on his cheek or a halting walk due to an aching behind, she simply nurses him tenderly and listens as he pours out his heart.
    More than once, he has asked, “Can’t I come live with you, Elizabeth? Can’t you be my mom?”
    What can she say to that but a gentle, wistful no? She certainly can’t admit to the child that she has often fantasized about taking him in, about raising him with the maternal love and affection he so sorely needs … things she, too, had once sorely needed.
    But that’s impossible—more so now than ever before.
    Now that she is no longer sure of her obscurity.
    “Did you call me last night, Manny?” she asks abruptly, switching gears.
    “Did I call you? Unh-unh. How come?”
    A chill steals over her, despite the hot August sun beating down from the cloudless sky.
    “I just … I heard the phone ringing and I couldn’t get to it in time,” she says, trying not to give away her inner alarm.
    Because if it hadn’t been Manny, then it must have been …
    “Well, it wasn’t me,” Manny says. “I was real busy last night. I had a special day camp meeting to go to.”
    “On a Saturday night?” she asks absently, her mind careening over a thousand and one terrifying scenarios.
    She can’t stay here and let him come after her like a hunter closing in on a pathetic animal snared helplessly in a trap. She has no choice but to get away....
    “It was about the Labor Day play,”