Read Online Slice by William Patterson - Free Book Online Page A

Heather stood by his side, not smiling much, as Bryan spoke with Mr. Thayer, and their two little kids, redheads like Bryan, clung to their father’s pants.
    Those could have been my kids , Jessie thought.
    But she’d her own kid, and Jessie wouldn’t trade Abby for anything, for any other life. For all the pain she’d been through with Emil—and the memory of the callous way he’d slit that man’s throat would never fully leave her—Jessie wouldn’t change what she had been through. If she hadn’t met Emil—if she hadn’t slept with him—she wouldn’t have Abby. And life without Abby was unimaginable.
    You didn’t feel that way about the boy.
    Jessie forced such thoughts out of her head. It had been a while since she thought about the twin she’d miscarried, the little boy fetus in the pool of blood—the little boy who had haunted her dreams for so long. For the last couple of years—and especially since she’d learned Emil had been killed—Jessie had been largely free from such haunting memories. Why was she suddenly thinking about the baby she’d lost this afternoon—when she had a yard full of guests to entertain?
    She knew why. Those people out in the yard represented her past. They knew Mom and Dad. They knew her secrets. They knew what she had been through. Not just with Emil either. They knew about her heartbreak with Todd and with Bryan, and they all would watch to see how Jessie reacted when she greeted them, their wives at their sides.
    Jessie held her chin high and walked through the dining room toward the back door. As she did so, she passed a photograph of Mom. She’d found it yesterday, and slipped it into a frame and hung it on the wall. It was a picture that her mother had given her when she had gone off to college. Jessie had been nervous, afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle the workload and the pressures of living away from home for the first time in her life. Mom had found a photo of herself from when she was Jessie’s age—seventeen. In the photo, Mom was smiling wide, sporting her mid-1960s hairdo that flipped up at the ends. She wore a little black choker with a heart in the center. And she’d taken a black felt-tip marker and inscribed the photo for Jessie.
    You can do anything, my sweet baby. There is nothing you can’t accomplish when you put your mind, heart and spirit into it.
    She’d signed it, Love, Mom.
    Jessie paused and looked at the photo, rereading the inscription. Then she nodded to herself and headed outside.
    She walked straight into the foursome of Monica and Todd, and Heather and Bryan.
    â€œHello, Jessie,” Heather said.
    There was a brief hug between the two women.
    â€œWelcome home,” Bryan told her.
    Jessie didn’t hug him, but shook his hand.
    â€œThank you.” She paused. “It’s good to be home.”
    â€œYou look great,” Bryan said.
    His words seemed thick, and pointed, and full of meaning. In that unspoken way Aunt Paulette would have described as psychic, Jessie seemed to sense Heather’s discomfort with her husband’s observation.
    â€œJessie always looks great,” Todd reiterated, and this time Jessie felt Monica’s discomfort.
    â€œWhere are your children?” Jessie asked, directing the question to Heather. She found she couldn’t look at Bryan fully. “I thought I saw them a moment ago.”
    It was Bryan who answered her. “They spotted the swing set,” he said.
    They all looked in that direction. Bryan’s two kids were scrambling onto the two swings, leaving Abby just to watch. Inga was with them, supervising it all.
    â€œPiper and Ashton are thrilled to have someone in the neighborhood finally to play with,” Heather said.
    â€œI hope they’ll be good friends,” Jessie said.
    There was a moment of awkward silence. “Good friends” was a term with some