Read Online Heartbroken by Lisa Unger - Free Book Online Page A

Kate,
    The weather has been cold here at Heart Island. The water never quite warmed this year. Be sure you bring the proper gear, not like last year. I wonder if Sean’s kayaking skills have improved at all? Perhaps we can manage a day trip without someone needing to be hauled to shore.
    I know Brendan and Chelsea complained about the lack of television reception; I am afraid that hasn’t changed. Perhaps you’ll want to bring a portable DVD player again to keep them entertained. Though I will say that cell phone reception has come to the island, so that should make Chelsea less sullen. It’s very spotty, for reasons I can’t explain. But at least it’s something.
    I’ll be doing the final grocery shopping tomorrow. So if you have any special needs, let me know—or you’ll be quite out of luck, since we’re trying to avoid any unnecessary trips to the mainland. The menu for the last week will be written in stone unless you speak up now. Is Chelsea still a quasi-vegetarian? Does Brendan eat ANYTHING but macaroni and cheese? You know, it is impossible to be high-maintenance on Heart Island. I imagine, as the children get older, they’ll understand that better. Though I’m still waiting for you and Theodore to come up to speed on this point—ha-ha!
    K ate skimmed the rest of her mother’s e-mail and fought the urge to lie down, the way she often (always?) felt after communications from her mother. The embedded insults softened with terms of endearment and the digs masquerading as jokes never failed to drain her of energy.
    Your mother’s an expert sniper , Sean had said. You know you got hit; you just don’t know where the shot came from. You can’t do anything but lie there, bleeding out .
    The question was why Birdie always felt the need to aim and fire. If confronted, she’d say something like: “Oh, Kate, don’t be so sensitive.” It was a perfect double whammy, to hurt someone and then to act as if it were weakness on the part of the injured to cry out in pain. How could Kate have been angry with Theo for not wanting to go to the island anymore? The truth was, she wasn’t angry with him. She was angry with herself.
    “Are we going to go camping again this year?” Brendan asked.
    Kate started a little. She was sitting in her office, at the desk with her back to the door, which was, she knew, very bad feng shui. If you kept your back to the door, allegedly, you were energetically turning away from new business and new opportunities. You were also allowing enemies to sneak up on you, according to the feng shui expert who’d written the article in one of the many magazines dedicated to simplifying life. It made an odd kind of sense to Kate, though she hadn’t gotten around to rearranging the furniture. Why did the act of simplifying your life seem so complicated and require so much effort? Why was there never any time to do it?
    “I don’t know,” Kate said. She closed the e-mail and swiveled to face Brendan.
    Kate hated camping. It seemed silly to sleep outside in the woods when you could be sleeping inside in your bed. What was the point? To seem outdoorsy? Some people would give anything to be sleeping inside.
    “We’ll see about the weather,” she said. She tried to keep her voice bright.
    “What’s wrong?” Brendan asked.
    Both her children were delicately tied in to her moods; she could never hide anything from them. She was glad about that in some ways, because she didn’t want to hide anything from them. Not the big stuff, anyway—she knew how toxic that was. On the other hand, they didn’t need to know everything going on in her head every second, did they?
    “It’s nothing,” she said.
    “Lies,” said her son. He flopped himself down on the couch next to her desk, put his feet up on the cushions. She could see, even from a distance, that his ankle was swollen. It was turning a deep purple around the bone.
    Brendan was her little Tonka truck, sturdy and beefy, indestructible.