Read Online For Better, for Worse, Forever by Lurlene McDaniel - Free Book Online Page A

pitiful about it. The victim’sfamily often feels somehow responsible, although psychiatrists say that’s not true.”
    “That’s what I told him. But he’s mad at his father, as if
he
might have somehow stopped her.”
    “My friend was angry for a long time too. Truth was, she was angry at her mother for killing herself, but she couldn’t tell her how she felt. She couldn’t do anything except suffer mentally.”
    April understood. She saw how much Brandon was suffering over his mother’s death. Even she felt angry at Brandon’s mother for making him hurt so badly. She hoped he would be able to find some path out of his pain and make peace with his father. There was nothing she could do to help him. Worst of all, she was only going to go away from him too.
    Brandon set sail with April to a tiny, isolated island called a cay, several nautical miles from St. Croix. “These cays are all over the place,” he told her. “They’re made up of sand and coral rock, and I’ll bet I’ve explored every one of them. Mom and I used to anchor off-shoreand swim in to search for shells.” He’d borrowed a bigger boat than the first one he’d taught April to sail. She took the tiller under his direction, turning the mainsail into the stiff breeze, tacking and coming about until the boat approached the white-sand cay he’d chosen for their picnic.
    He jumped off into waist-high water and guided the boat ashore, then jammed the keel, the part of the boat that balanced it underwater, into the soft sand bottom. The sun seared through the shallow depths. She could see every ripple in the sand below. A crab scurried out of the way.
    April helped Brandon carry their gear ashore. He pitched a small dome-shaped tent to shield them from the brutal heat of the sun. They spread out large towels and set down a cooler and a picnic basket. Brandon raised side flaps to catch the tropical breeze. “This is great,” she told him, stretching out on her stomach so that she could gaze at the water lapping the shoreline and the boat.
    “Well, don’t get comfortable yet. We’re going snorkeling.” From a mesh bag he dragged out two sets of flippers, two face masks, and two bright orange snorkel tubes.
    She held up the flippers. “You must be kidding. I’ll look like a giant frog.”
    “With red hair,” he joked. “Don’t scare the fish.” He pulled out a large bottle of sunscreen.
    “I’ve already put some on me.”
    “You’ll need more.”
    She turned her back and lifted her mass of hair, quickly twisting it into a knot and fastening it with a scrunchie. He drizzled the cool lotion on her warm skin, making her shiver involuntarily. His big hands smoothed it along her back and down her arms. He didn’t hurry.
    “Now what?” she asked, not meeting his gaze, her flesh tingling from his touch.
    “Now we hit the water.”
    She followed him to the water’s edge, where she put on the flippers and the mask. After a few minutes of instruction, he led her out deeper and helped her to float facedown. Below the surface, she clearly saw the white-sand bottom and Brandon’s flippered feet. He towed her farther out to a coral reef shelf, and the undersea world changed dramatically. Fish, in shades of yellow, green, and even purple and silver, darted through a forestof living vivid-red coral. Starfish clustered around coral branches, their arms hugging the surfaces for dear life.
    Once she got the hang of it, April easily sucked air through her snorkeling tube. Brandon never let go of her hand, and together they floated like voyagers from another planet. He tapped her shoulder and pointed to their left. She stared, awed, as a giant manta ray swam past, flapping its wings like a quiet bird of prey, its undersides flashing white in the blue water. Shafts of sunlight streamed downward, lighting beds of coral like spotlights that faded as the coral shelf dropped off and the ocean grew deeper, darker.
    A curious parrot fish swam up to her