Read Online Specter (9780307823403) by Joan Lowery Nixon - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joan Lowery Nixon
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and this time they fit.
Thursday moves from a long, sleepless night into a sudden rush of morning. The air is still, the skyis golden. I can’t eat. I am dressed and waiting in the chair by the window before Julie has even finished her breakfast.
“Hurry up,” I tell her.
“You keep saying that,” she complains. “Dr. Lynn won’t be here for a long time.”
She dawdles, so I help her. I pull her twiglike arms through the sleeves of her T-shirt and jam the neck of it down over her head.
“Ouch!” she says. “You messed up my hair.”
“I’ll brush it for you.” More slowly, more gently, I brush her pale hair, reminding myself that she’s only nine years old.
Dr. Lynn and Dr. Paull arrive together. His professional dignity is punctured with the smiles he keeps giving Dr. Lynn. He looks much nicer when he smiles.
“We have a great day for a drive,” he says.
And we do. The wild flowers are gone now, but the air is fragrant with sun-warmed field grass and the prickly-sour smell of new oak leaves.
“I’d like us to be friends, Dina,” Dr. Paull says.
“Okay,” I answer.
It’s hard for him to unbend, but I can see that he’s trying, for Dr. Lynn’s sake. Then he tells us some fourth-grade jokes that he probably memorized from a book for kids. He’s just not with it. He’s wearing those green plaid slacks again, and it’s awfully hard not to think of him as “old grasshopper legs.”
The highway passes the farms on the outskirts of Boerne and climbs past the exit to Kerrville. We chat about a number of things. What, I don’t know. My mind is already at the home.
Holley Jo will be waiting for me. She’ll be wearing shorts, her legs already tanned, and she’ll brighten like the floodlights on the baseball field when she sees me coming. She’ll run to meet me, and we’ll hug each other and laugh, and she’ll try to tell me everything that has happened since we last were together. It will be like always. And I need it. I need it to happen just this way. I need her to say, “Oh, Dina! Welcome back! I’ve missed you so much!”
It takes another hour before we are close enough so that I can recognize things: the old white house where the farm-market road cuts across the highway, the windmill that has been rotting away forever, the road to the right that leads to the home.
I perch on the edge of my seat. It’s hard to breathe. Dr. Lynn smiles and says something to me, but I don’t hear her. I don’t want to hear. In a moment we’ll round the curve, and I’ll see Holley Jo.
The car makes a wide swing, and I grip the seat in front of me. There is the main building. There is the porch. I am able to breathe again. I give a shout. There is Holley Jo, pacing in front, watching the road.
She stops and stares. As we get closer, she waves.She runs toward the car. And I am out and running toward her before the car has come to a complete stop.
My arms are wide. “Holley Jo!” I shout. “I’m back!”
She falters, and there is such shock on her face that I stop, too. For an instant we stare at each other, unable to cross an invisible barrier that has sprung up between us.
At first I don’t understand. “Holley Jo?”
She looks the way she did last summer when she managed to take a young bird away from one of the yard cats, and she held it in her hands and knew it was too late.
When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “Oh, Dina,” she says. “Is it you?”
CHAPTER
6
Dr. Lynn is out of the car now. She has one arm around my shoulders, and she propels me toward Holley Jo. “I’m Dr. Lynn Manning,” she says. “I’m so happy to meet you, Holley Jo, because you’re Dina’s closest friend. She’s told me so many lovely things about you.”
Holley Jo has wiped the shock from her eyes. She reaches out and hugs me, but gently, as though she’s afraid I’m going to crack into little pieces.
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” she tells me.
I answer, “And
Thursday moves from a long, sleepless night into a sudden rush of morning. The air is still, the skyis golden. I can’t eat. I am dressed and waiting in the chair by the window before Julie has even finished her breakfast.
“Hurry up,” I tell her.
“You keep saying that,” she complains. “Dr. Lynn won’t be here for a long time.”
She dawdles, so I help her. I pull her twiglike arms through the sleeves of her T-shirt and jam the neck of it down over her head.
“Ouch!” she says. “You messed up my hair.”
“I’ll brush it for you.” More slowly, more gently, I brush her pale hair, reminding myself that she’s only nine years old.
Dr. Lynn and Dr. Paull arrive together. His professional dignity is punctured with the smiles he keeps giving Dr. Lynn. He looks much nicer when he smiles.
“We have a great day for a drive,” he says.
And we do. The wild flowers are gone now, but the air is fragrant with sun-warmed field grass and the prickly-sour smell of new oak leaves.
“I’d like us to be friends, Dina,” Dr. Paull says.
“Okay,” I answer.
It’s hard for him to unbend, but I can see that he’s trying, for Dr. Lynn’s sake. Then he tells us some fourth-grade jokes that he probably memorized from a book for kids. He’s just not with it. He’s wearing those green plaid slacks again, and it’s awfully hard not to think of him as “old grasshopper legs.”
The highway passes the farms on the outskirts of Boerne and climbs past the exit to Kerrville. We chat about a number of things. What, I don’t know. My mind is already at the home.
Holley Jo will be waiting for me. She’ll be wearing shorts, her legs already tanned, and she’ll brighten like the floodlights on the baseball field when she sees me coming. She’ll run to meet me, and we’ll hug each other and laugh, and she’ll try to tell me everything that has happened since we last were together. It will be like always. And I need it. I need it to happen just this way. I need her to say, “Oh, Dina! Welcome back! I’ve missed you so much!”
It takes another hour before we are close enough so that I can recognize things: the old white house where the farm-market road cuts across the highway, the windmill that has been rotting away forever, the road to the right that leads to the home.
I perch on the edge of my seat. It’s hard to breathe. Dr. Lynn smiles and says something to me, but I don’t hear her. I don’t want to hear. In a moment we’ll round the curve, and I’ll see Holley Jo.
The car makes a wide swing, and I grip the seat in front of me. There is the main building. There is the porch. I am able to breathe again. I give a shout. There is Holley Jo, pacing in front, watching the road.
She stops and stares. As we get closer, she waves.She runs toward the car. And I am out and running toward her before the car has come to a complete stop.
My arms are wide. “Holley Jo!” I shout. “I’m back!”
She falters, and there is such shock on her face that I stop, too. For an instant we stare at each other, unable to cross an invisible barrier that has sprung up between us.
At first I don’t understand. “Holley Jo?”
She looks the way she did last summer when she managed to take a young bird away from one of the yard cats, and she held it in her hands and knew it was too late.
When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “Oh, Dina,” she says. “Is it you?”
CHAPTER
6
Dr. Lynn is out of the car now. She has one arm around my shoulders, and she propels me toward Holley Jo. “I’m Dr. Lynn Manning,” she says. “I’m so happy to meet you, Holley Jo, because you’re Dina’s closest friend. She’s told me so many lovely things about you.”
Holley Jo has wiped the shock from her eyes. She reaches out and hugs me, but gently, as though she’s afraid I’m going to crack into little pieces.
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” she tells me.
I answer, “And
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