Read Online Once Upon a List by Robin Gold - Free Book Online Page A

home?”
    â€œOh please . Right. Why? So I can make a silly gingerbread house from scratch and then cross that off my time capsule list too?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œPerfect.” Clara sipped her coffee. “While I’m at it, why don’t I just go ahead and do everything else on my list until it’s all crossed off?”
    â€œI think that’s an excellent idea.”
    Clara shot her brother a look implying he might be stark-raving mad. “I was kidding. Only kidding . . .”
    Slowly, and with emphasis, Leo met Clara’s bemused gaze with an expression void of humor. “I wasn’t. You need a plan of action—something to help get you out of this horrible rut you’re in. Sure, it might sound a tad unconventional, but it’s no more farfetched than some of the other methods you’ve tried to overcome your grief. This could actually be worth consideration.”
    Clara stared at Leo, dumbfounded. “My God . . . you’re—you’re really serious, aren’t you?”
    â€œCompletely.”
    â€œOh, come on, Leo. I’m not in fifth grade anymore. I’m not ten .”
    â€œNo, but I’ll tell you something. I just saw your eyes light up as if you were when you were reading that article. For a brief minute there, you weren’t”—he searched for the correct word— “lifeless.”
    Clara winced.
    â€œI’m—I’m sorry.” His face flushed with guilt. “I’m not trying to be cruel.”
    â€œI know.” Clara sighed, closing her eyes, neither asleep nor really awake. She was just so damn tired of it all. She forced a quivery, unnatural chuckle. “Hell . . . Might as well call a spade a spade . . .” She looked down at her lap, as if saddled with some bleak, terrible shame, quietly confessing, “I feel lifeless. Actually? Dead is more like it. And apparently there’s nothing I can do about it.”
    â€œJesus, Clara.” Leo’s face tensed at her resignation. “What would Sebastian do if he heard you say that?”
    She gave a weak, dismissive shrug. “Doesn’t matter . . . He’s gone.”
    â€œIt does matter!” Leo, visibly shaken, pounded his fist on the table. “I know for a fact he’d tell you that you’re not dead—not at all. So you have to do whatever it takes for you to stop feeling that way. Even if it means building a fancy cookie house!” Leo inhaled a deep breath. When he spoke again his tone was softer, yet even more intense. He looked Clara directly in the eye. “You know as well as I do it would have destroyed Sebastian to see you like this.”
    Clara straightened her spine, shaking her head as if trying to clear away a thick cobweb of dust. “UGH!” She released a huge, pent-up sigh. “I don’t know . . . Maybe you’re right,” she conceded, considering it further. “Insane—and I do mean insane —as it sounds, maybe Sebastian would tell me to at least give that silly old time capsule list a try.”
    â€œMaybe he would,” Leo mused, returning his attention to the newspaper, for he knew his sister did her most productive thinking in silence.
    L ater that afternoon, Clara lay in bed trying to focus on a mystery novel, which, desperate for distraction, she’d randomly picked up at the airport on her way to Chicago. But, after turning page after page and not processing a single word, she finally surrendered, closing the book—and then her eyelids—with a weighty sigh. A former bookworm, there was a time not too long ago when Clara read at least one novel per week. Sebastian would curl up in bed with the latest issue of Podiatry Today or Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association (his favorite!), she’d snuggle up with something on the New York Times bestseller list or an old classic she hadn’t