Read Online Pieces of Why by K. L. Going - Free Book Online Page A

up the shoebox and turned it upside down. Pictures flew everywhere, fluttering across the linoleum. I watched them fall, wanting to stomp on them, but instead I knelt and picked them up one by one, placing them back in the box.
    There had to be a picture of my father in there. Just one.
    I’d seen most of the photos a hundred times, but a few were unfamiliar—the ones Ma kept stashed at the bottom. But none of them were of him.
    Where was he?
    Ma had married him, they’d had me, we’d been a family, lived together in this very house. Was it possible that aperson could be absent from an entire lifetime of photographs? I grabbed the box and hurled it across the kitchen.
    When it landed, the pictures I’d just put back spilled out and one of them slid under the refrigerator. I grabbed the yardstick, got down on my hands and knees, and guided it out, and that’s when I saw the second photo. It was a three-by-five color snapshot of my parents sitting on the steps of their high school. My father, his dark hair trimmed short, was laughing, one arm around my freckle-faced mother, pulling her close. Ma was looking up at him, smiling so big, I hardly recognized her. And he was looking back, grinning as if he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
    I stared at the photo.
    Where was the evil? This person had ended up committing murder and had gone to jail for life. Shouldn’t badness be something you could see coming?
    Yet, here he was.
    My father.
    Happy.

    Dwelling has a way of muddling time. One minute it’s early and you have the whole day ahead of you, and the next, that day is drifting away. I stared at the photograph of my father, trying to decide what I should do with it. I decided to go to Keisha’s house, figuring maybe I’d show her the picture. Butwhen I walked out, instead of turning toward her place, I went left, toward the baby’s house.
    I thought about the Raven woman’s face in the window, and I couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever feel happy again. Maybe she’d smile and laugh, but wouldn’t there always be something missing? Years from now, when she looked through her photos, would she ache for the ones that weren’t there?
    When I got to the house, it was quiet and still, and I guessed right away that it was empty. I supposed that made sense. There were probably all sorts of baby things inside. Reminders of how unlivable life could be.
    I thought about turning around, but I didn’t.
    Sweat dripped down my back, and the soft blue T-shirt and shorts I’d pulled on that morning clung to my skin. I realized my hands were clenched tight, and the imprints of my fingers made deep red grooves in my palms. They stung as I unclasped them. I sat down beside the memorial fence, pulling my bare knees into my chest. After a long while, I took the photo of my father out of the pocket of my shorts.
    All that h
appiness, ruined.
    I remembered Danielle Morton’s huge smile. She’d had no idea that she would end up murdered. Did her family and friends still miss her every day, even after eight years had gone by?
    I wanted to rip the photo to shreds, but I couldn’t do it.
    This was the only picture I had. Even if Ma had kept another one, it wasn’t like I could ask her for it. Then again, maybe my father didn’t deserve to be remembered.
    I studied the memorial fence. The candles had been knocked over, and some of the teddy bears had fallen down, so I set my father’s photo on the sidewalk and walked over. I straightened each item, then retied a sagging ribbon closer to the iron filigree. A section of chain link had been set up to hold messages and photographs, but it had slumped, so I stood it upright and plugged some of the cards, handwritten prayers, and small crosses deeper into the holes where people had wedged them.
    Trash was scattered in the yard—small bits of wrapping and debris. I gathered each piece, slowly and