Read Online Healing Sands by Stephen Arterburn, Nancy Rue - Free Book Online Page B

captain.”
    No, his mother will. If it kills him.
    Dan went off to join the boys, and I turned in search of my purse. Somebody touched my arm. I looked back at J.P.
    â€œI have to ask,” she said. “Why did you let that man get away?”
    â€œ He didn’t get away,” I said. “ I did.”
    I chewed on that all the way to Dan’s, while pretending to listen to Alex go on about how cool it was of Dad to make Cade captain and how Dad wouldn’t let the other guys boo when he announced it and how all the guys were saying he was the most awesome coach ever, except the ones that thought they should be captain but they would get over it because Dad was going to figure out a way to make them feel like they were something big, too, because that was what Dad did. I felt like Alex was filling out a profile on Match.com.
    When we arrived, Jake and a boy I didn’t know were kicking a soccer ball around in one of what Dan called his “sculpture parks.” Could I not get away from this game to save my soul? But at least Jake was outside rather than in self-imposed exile in his room. Out where I could get to him.
    At least that was my plan. He took one look at my car and headed straight for the backyard. I left my door hanging open and went after him.
    â€œJake,” I said. “Just stop.”
    He’d gotten as far as the gate that led to the yard off the back patio. He did stop, hand on the latch, but he didn’t turn around.
    â€œI know you think I’m going to ask you all these questions,” I said to his back, “but I just have one. I promise.”
    He turned with all the enthusiasm of a root canal patient.
    â€œJust tell me why you won’t talk to me about what happened. That’s all I want to know.”
    His reply was swift, as if he’d been expecting me to ask. “Because Dad says I don’t have to.”
    Without waiting for me to go back on my word, he slipped through the gate almost without opening it. I felt every blood vessel pump as I stomped back to the front of the house where Alex was still pulling his gear out of my car. Dan’s 4-Runner was now parked beside it.
    â€œWhere’s your father?” I asked.
    â€œI think he went out to the studio.”
    Why had I even bothered to ask?
    I hadn’t been to his studio here, but it was obviously the long, low adobe building toward the back of the property, and to get there I had to make my way through another sculpture park. It had always been a dream of Dan’s to build his pieces as massively as he wanted and then simply plant them where they would be “discovered” by anyone who happened by. That dream had obviously come to fruition.
    I charged past giant banjo players welded together from hubcaps and bicycle pedals and less easily identified scraps of metal. Around baseball players fashioned from railroad ties and hunks of stone. Between two stoneware masks that were taller than I was. Every piece fed my fury, until by the time I reached Dan’s doorway I could have disassembled his kiln brick by brick with my teeth.
    Dan was already in baggy jeans and the same white muslin too-big shirt he’d worn to work in ever since I’d known him—back when I thought what he did was romantic. I had grown to despise it, just as I had every bucket filled with broken pieces of tile and every stack of unpaid bills. He stood back from a tall swirl of metal, hands on his narrow hips, as if he were waiting for it to speak. I spoke first.
    â€œWhy did you tell Jake he doesn’t have to talk to me about this?” His eyes traveled up the metal structure that nearly reached the ceiling. “Because there’s nothing to talk about.”
    â€œThere is everything to talk about. He’s going to go to prison if we don’t find out what happened.”
    â€œHow do you know that what happened isn’t exactly what it looks like