Read Online Letters from the Heart by Annie Bryant - Free Book Online

glanced from Maeve to Sam. “I know it’s another thing for you to get used to. But it’s only part-time, just twenty hours a week. And quite honestly, we need the money.”
    â€œBut what about US?” Maeve wailed. She had alwaysrelied on her mom to help her keep her schedule straight. Now, she was going to need that more than ever. How was she going to remember what was where? What if she left her homework over at her dad’s place? Or her day planner? It was hard enough keeping her life straight right now, let alone with two separate houses to live in! Who was going to keep track of that kind of thing for her now? What about all her stuff—her homework and her clothes and her music and her guinea pigs?
    â€œMaeve,” her father said softly, leaning across the table and putting his hand over hers. “We need you to be strong. I know this isn’t easy. But, we really need you to help us out. We really do think it’s for the best.”
    â€œOkay,” Maeve whispered. She couldn’t say no when her dad asked her for something this important. But being mature had never been harder.
    â€œLet’s just leave all of this,” her mom said, looking around her at the kitchen, which was now decorated with ketchup from Sam’s war with his dinner plate. “Sammy, let’s go read a story.”
    Maeve stared at her in amazement. Since when did her mother walk away from the table without clearing it and washing every last dish?
    Wow , she thought. Things really ARE changing around here.
    â€œMaeve,” her dad said quietly, “should we surprise your mom and clean up the kitchen?”
    Maeve paused. Well, at least it would give them something to do. “Okay,” she said.
    She got out the dustpan and helped her father sweep up the broken dish. If only the rest of life could be fixed this easily , she thought.
    It was strangely comforting, doing something concretewith her father. But Maeve could feel a lump forming in her throat. Why did everything have to change? Why couldn’t her mother and father work out whatever was wrong between them? She didn’t understand. She just knew that she wanted her father to stay. And for life to go on the way it always had.
    T O T ELL OR N OT TO T ELL?
    Maeve closed the door to her bedroom and looked around, trying to blink back tears. It was so weird—everything looked just the same as it always had. Her beloved bed with its ruffled canopy. Her bulletin board crowded with pictures of her friends—a snapshot of her friend Charlotte and her father in snorkeling gear near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; Katani in a fabulous one-shoulder dress that she’d designed and sewn herself; Avery, arms in the air in exaltation, having just scored the winning goal against Cambridge in last year’s soccer play-offs; Isabel, hard at work on a box she was mod-podging with wonderful materials taken from magazines and newspapers.
    Across the room, Romeo and Juliet were swooping around in their cage, looking like nothing whatsoever was the matter. Over their cage hung Maeve’s favorite poster—Orlando Bloom, shot on location in New Zealand, his hair half-falling over one eye. He was one of Maeve’s heroes, ever since she’d found out that he had dyslexia, too.
    Maeve opened up her laptop on her desk and connected to the Internet. Her mind was swimming. She wanted to I.M. Charlotte. Charlotte would be an amazing friend to pour her heart out to. After all, Charlotte had gone through some pretty big stuff herself.
    Her mother dying when she was little…moving around so much with her dad…never feeling as if she fit in…
    But something made Maeve hesitate before she clicked on Charlotte’s screen name in her buddy list. She didn’t feel ready to face Charlotte’s loving concern.
    Anyway, Charlotte was in New York with her dad. She wouldn’t be online.
    What about Avery? Her