Read Online Sing It to Her Bones by Marcia Talley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marcia Talley
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that should have kept me from saddling myself with somebody else’s.
One, I had had cancer. Maybe I still did. Who knew how many microscopic malignant cells had survived the chemicals and were even now cruising around my bloodstream, scouting out a comfortable spot to set up housekeeping?
Two, I was unemployed.
So why did I care so much about these people I had just met and a dead girl I never knew at all? Were they simply a distraction from my own troubles or was it the realization that Emily had been just Katie’s age the night she flounced off to a Phish concert in Washington, D.C., and we didn’t see her again for over three weeks? But unlike the Dunbars, we’d been lucky. Somewhere between Durango and Albuquerque, Emily and her rat-tailed, pierced-eared boyfriend had run out of money and decided to hitchhike home.
I need to go home, too , I told myself. Get some perspective. Sort through my mail, print out my résumé, find some envelopes, and, last but certainly not least, give Paul a sizable piece of my mind .
By three o’clock I had thrown my toothbrush and a few necessities into the car and told Connie I’d call, promising to see her again in a few days. I settled into the driver’s seat and breathed deeply. The overnight rain had cleared the air, leaving it fresh and smelling of clean, damp earth. Plump clouds scudded across an otherwise clear blue sky, and the sun warmed my face as I drove north up 301 toward Annapolis with the car windows rolled down and the wind roaring across my ears, making my gold hoop earrings sing.
Annapolis can be so beautiful in springtime that italmost breaks your heart. Somewhere before Interstate 97 joins Route 50 bringing visitors in from Baltimore and points north, new construction had widened the highway and money had been found, goodness knows where, to face the overpasses with brick. Wildflowers, in a rainbow of brilliant colors, thrived in the median strips and nestled in the Vs formed by the exit ramps.
On Rowe Boulevard, the scenic approach into Annapolis, the city fathers had planted tulips, and as I waited for the light to turn at Melvin Avenue, I had to admire the red and yellow blooms, heads nodding in the light breeze. Nature was doing its best to cheer me up, but I wasn’t buying. It was hard enough to leave Pearson’s Corner with the mystery of Katie’s disappearance still weighing heavily on my mind, but by the time I passed the new courthouse building near the stadium, I had almost convinced myself that Paul must have interrupted a burglary in progress. I worried that I’d find him sprawled on our kitchen floor with his head bashed in, one arm outflung near the off-the-hook phone.
I was going at least twenty miles over the posted limit when I screeched to a halt at the far end of the boulevard where it dead-ends at College Avenue. Late-blooming fat white cherry blossoms had turned the State House before me into a picture postcard. I thanked God for creating spring, giving me something to hang on to in the face of all that I’d gone through. This was my first spring since cancer had turned my life upside down. For poor Katie, though, there would be no more springtimes.
Our house is an old brick colonial on Prince George Street, tucked between two similar houses not too far from historic William Paca House. On a clear day from our bedroom on the top floor you can see the Naval Academy chapel dome. In the winter, when the trees are bare, we even claim a water view of Spa Creek.
Parking is always a problem in the historic district, particularly in summer when hordes of tourists clog the town, so I sometimes sneak my car into the Naval Academy visitors’ lot and walk home. Today I had the luck of a cop in a made-for-TV movie; someone was pulling out of a space just as I circled the block for the second time.
In our entrance hall, ignoring the mail that had piled up—a staggering amount in just four days—I threw my keys on the table and called,
One, I had had cancer. Maybe I still did. Who knew how many microscopic malignant cells had survived the chemicals and were even now cruising around my bloodstream, scouting out a comfortable spot to set up housekeeping?
Two, I was unemployed.
So why did I care so much about these people I had just met and a dead girl I never knew at all? Were they simply a distraction from my own troubles or was it the realization that Emily had been just Katie’s age the night she flounced off to a Phish concert in Washington, D.C., and we didn’t see her again for over three weeks? But unlike the Dunbars, we’d been lucky. Somewhere between Durango and Albuquerque, Emily and her rat-tailed, pierced-eared boyfriend had run out of money and decided to hitchhike home.
I need to go home, too , I told myself. Get some perspective. Sort through my mail, print out my résumé, find some envelopes, and, last but certainly not least, give Paul a sizable piece of my mind .
By three o’clock I had thrown my toothbrush and a few necessities into the car and told Connie I’d call, promising to see her again in a few days. I settled into the driver’s seat and breathed deeply. The overnight rain had cleared the air, leaving it fresh and smelling of clean, damp earth. Plump clouds scudded across an otherwise clear blue sky, and the sun warmed my face as I drove north up 301 toward Annapolis with the car windows rolled down and the wind roaring across my ears, making my gold hoop earrings sing.
Annapolis can be so beautiful in springtime that italmost breaks your heart. Somewhere before Interstate 97 joins Route 50 bringing visitors in from Baltimore and points north, new construction had widened the highway and money had been found, goodness knows where, to face the overpasses with brick. Wildflowers, in a rainbow of brilliant colors, thrived in the median strips and nestled in the Vs formed by the exit ramps.
On Rowe Boulevard, the scenic approach into Annapolis, the city fathers had planted tulips, and as I waited for the light to turn at Melvin Avenue, I had to admire the red and yellow blooms, heads nodding in the light breeze. Nature was doing its best to cheer me up, but I wasn’t buying. It was hard enough to leave Pearson’s Corner with the mystery of Katie’s disappearance still weighing heavily on my mind, but by the time I passed the new courthouse building near the stadium, I had almost convinced myself that Paul must have interrupted a burglary in progress. I worried that I’d find him sprawled on our kitchen floor with his head bashed in, one arm outflung near the off-the-hook phone.
I was going at least twenty miles over the posted limit when I screeched to a halt at the far end of the boulevard where it dead-ends at College Avenue. Late-blooming fat white cherry blossoms had turned the State House before me into a picture postcard. I thanked God for creating spring, giving me something to hang on to in the face of all that I’d gone through. This was my first spring since cancer had turned my life upside down. For poor Katie, though, there would be no more springtimes.
Our house is an old brick colonial on Prince George Street, tucked between two similar houses not too far from historic William Paca House. On a clear day from our bedroom on the top floor you can see the Naval Academy chapel dome. In the winter, when the trees are bare, we even claim a water view of Spa Creek.
Parking is always a problem in the historic district, particularly in summer when hordes of tourists clog the town, so I sometimes sneak my car into the Naval Academy visitors’ lot and walk home. Today I had the luck of a cop in a made-for-TV movie; someone was pulling out of a space just as I circled the block for the second time.
In our entrance hall, ignoring the mail that had piled up—a staggering amount in just four days—I threw my keys on the table and called,
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