Read Online On Every Side by Karen Kingsbury - Free Book Online Page B

son… Don't let walls grow around your heart because I'm sick… because I'm sick… because I'm sick. “
    His mother's words ran across his heart again and again. His poor, sweet, gullible mother. There was no God and no heaven. Only lonely, old cemeteries where people such as Evelyn Riley and Bob Moses lay rotting beneath the earth's surface.
    “Jesus loves you, son.”
    Right. Jordan wiped his cheeks, stood up, and stared once more at his mother's tombstone. “I miss you, Mom.” His voice came out in a strained whisper, which was all he could manage under the burden of his emotions. “If you can hear me, if you can see me… I miss you.” A sob lodged in his throat and he swal-lowed it back. “I'm trying to find Heidi, but I'm not sure how. I wish…”
    He couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't bring himself to say that he wished the God she had so strongly believed in had been real after all, and that if He were real, He might have cared about them as much as his mother believed. If He were, if He had… maybe she could ask Him to help find Heidi.
    But it was all a batch of fanciful stories and groundless traditions. Jordan bent down and touched the stone once more. “Good-bye, Mom. I still love you.”
    He turned and made his way out of the cemetery, back toward his motel… back to consider whether he would file a law-suit against Bethany that afternoon. He would lock himself in his room, lay out the briefs he'd written, and make a decision, once and for all.
    He drove back along Main Street and—
    Jordan slammed on his brakes, nearly causing a pileup. Waving his apology at three drivers, he pulled to the side of the road and stared. There it was—a block from the old neighbor-hood—Jericho Park and the infamous Jesus statue.
    He climbed out of his car, crossed the street, and found the bench he'd been so familiar with sixteen years ago. A bench just five feet from the statue. As he sat, his eyes were drawn to the lifelike expression in the carved eyes. Powerless against the pull, Jordan felt himself drifting back in time.
    He could see his mother, stirring a pot of soup on the stoveand smiling at him. “You know what?” The memory of his mother's voice rang in his heart. “My favorite place in town is Jericho Park and the Jesus statue.”
    The Jesus statue… the Jesus statue… the Jesus statue.
Jordan closed his eyes and pictured himself a ruddy-cheeked teenage boy riding his bike to this spot, this very bench…night after night after night… to his mother's favorite spot.
    Begging God to let his mother live.
    He blinked and saw the statue the way he had as a boy the arms beckoning him, the eyes seeming to know his pain. And suddenly it wasn't one memory or two, but a whole flood of scenes and voices all taking Jordan back in time to the days when he had actually believed they would all live happily ever after.

Six
    T he house had belonged to Earl Riley's family. Otherwise there would have been no way Evelyn Riley and her two children could have afforded to live on Oak Street. They'd lived in a one-bedroom apartment until word came that Jordan's father was dead. Jordan was five at the time and though he didn't remember Earl or the policemen who came to the door that afternoon, he remembered what happened next.
    There was a party—at least it had seemed like a party—and everyone was paying special attention to him and Heidi. A fancy lady with a feathered hat spent much of that day bawling and fussing over his mother, saying things like, “You poor dear” and “I had no idea Earl wasn't taking care of you.”
    Back then Jordan hadn't been sure what it all meant, but a little while later he and his mother and Heidi moved into the house on Oak Street. “It's a gift from your grandma,” was all his mother would say Often Jordan wondered why his grandma had given them a house but never came to see them or stay for dinner. It all made sense now, of course.
    Jordan blinked and felt the chill of a