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

The falls and accidents he’d had over his short life were legendary, but he seemed to get up and walk away, immediately game for the next adventure. Today he’d hurt his ankle during soccer. And now he was limping badly.
    Instead of watching the rest of the game, they’d spent an hour at the urgent care center near their house. After he’d twisted his ankle, as she comforted him on the field and held the ice to it, she’d wondered—selfishly, guiltily—if this was reason enough to cancel the trip. But the doctor had said that nothing was broken or fractured; it was just a bad sprain.
    “Where’s your ice pack?” she asked.
    “It’s too cold.”
    She had to love the logic of her ten-year-old.
    “It’s supposed to be cold.”
    He gave her an earnest look. “I’m taking a break from it.”
    She got up and went into the living room, where he’d tossed the ice pack on the floor, and returned to her office. She placed it gently on his ankle. He didn’t look up from his handheld game.
    Sean had purchased the device for him recently, mainly because they felt like they had to, since Chelsea’s father had given her an iPhone for no reason at all. This had been one of the major points of contention between Kate and her ex-husband recently: whether he could give Chelsea extravagant gifts without Kate and Sean’s permission.
    Even though they could, Kate and Sean made a conscious effort not to give the kids everything they wanted when they wanted it. Chelsea and Brendan each had a list, and they got what was on that list eventually—usually for birthdays, Christmas, or some school accomplishment, after saving for part of it themselves, or by earning it in some other way, and, of course, the random surprise. But because of her ex’s sudden desire to win Chelsea over (now that he was sober and “confronting his past mistakes”), not to mention his titanic guilt complex, he was giving her things—like the iPhone, piles of clothes, designer bags.
    “I have a right to buy my daughter gifts,” he’d said to Kate during this afternoon’s heated conversation. She was inadequate at the task of explaining why it was not okay to give Chelsea things that Kate would have made her wait for or earn. Or how it upset the balance of fairness between Chelsea and her brother. You couldn’t explain the complex strategies of good and careful parenting to someone who’d never had a thought about anything or anyone but himself.
    Close up, Brendan’s ankle looked even worse than it had on the field. She put a tender hand on it and sat down next to him on the couch.
    “Listen, bud,” she said. “Maybe we should think about canceling the trip.”
    Brendan glanced up from his game with wide eyes. She pressed on.
    “It’s going to be hard for you there while you’re injured.” She was such a horrible mother. What a total cop-out to try to use Brendan’s injury to get them out of this trip.
    “It’s fine!” he said. He sat up quickly. “It’s not that bad.”
    He stood to prove his point, then tried to hide the resulting wince. He sat back down, deflated. She draped an arm around him and pulled him in close.
    “I love it there,” he said.
    She felt a powerful twist of sadness. She loved it there, too. Something magical lived on Heart Island, something beautiful. It had been there long before her mother’s family had ever owned it, and it would be there long after they were all gone. None of the awful things that had happened on the island, or because of it, could change that. It wasn’t only the glorious air or the unspoiled lake water. It wasn’t simply the rocky shore or the wind in the trees. It wasn’t the musical quiet or even the clusters of butterflies. It was something Kate had never been able to explain or define, but it drew her there again and again, even though an equal number of things pushed her away. Theo had obviously given up on it. Kate couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t.
    She looked at her watch. It