Read Online The Heart's Voice by Arlene James - Free Book Online Page B

with this little fellow.
    Dan wondered where the turtle’s original owner might be. Surely anyone in the area would have seen Jemmy’s sign. There wasn’t another grocery store for miles around, and a turtle couldn’t have traveled far on its own. Could it? Maybe he and Buddy were more alike than he even knew.
    Have you been around the world, Buddy? Dan wondered. Did you travel far away and somehow find your way home again, like me?
    He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up at Becca.
    “Dinner’s ready.”
    He nodded and stood to watch as Jemmy carefully transferred Buddy to his cardboard box house with holes cut in the sides. She placed the box, with a bed of yellow grass and a large bowl of water inside, beneath the shade of an oak tree.
    Becca waved Jemmy forward, then followed her into the house. She said something to the child, whonodded and rushed on into the kitchen. “You’ll want to wash up, too,” Becca said, turning to him. “You can use the kitchen sink as soon as Jemmy’s done.” She followed the child, presumably to be sure that she washed her hands sufficiently.
    The instant he stepped up into the house, a mélange of rich, complex aromas tickled his nostrils and made his stomach rumble in anticipation. While he waited for his turn at the sink, he looked around the back porch. It had been sealed off with heavy plastic sheeting and plywood to make a bedroom, with a metal rod hung across one end for a closet. Atop that rod and the odds and ends of clothing that hung from it lay a battered old tan felt cowboy hat that Dan recognized as belonging to Cody, a memento of the boy he had been. That hat said to Dan that the Kinders were irrefutable proof that happiness wasn’t about things or money—not that he’d ever really believed that. Still, he’d always had nice things and plenty of money to buy more if he needed or wanted. He had good parents and wouldn’t wish for any others, but he couldn’t help feeling a little envious of Cody at the moment. How simple and fulfilling his life must have been.
    Simple, fulfilling and short, Dan reminded himself as Becca beckoned him. While he washed up, she helped Abby carry food to the table. With his hands clean and dry, he moved out into the space that served as the dining area. It was nothing more really than an awkward corner at the end of theliving room where doors from all the other rooms in the house—bedroom, bath and kitchen—could swing open without colliding, but Abby had managed to tuck a round, claw-foot table and a number of mismatched chairs into it. Obviously no doors could be opened when the table was occupied, so the kitchen door had been removed from its hinges. John Odem was already sitting at the table when Dan arrived, with CJ propped up by pillows and tied with a dish towel to a chair beside him. A space equal to the boy’s reach had been cleared on the tabletop. Deprived of more interesting utensils, he smacked the table repeatedly with his hands.
    John Odem said something and pointed to a chair across the table from him, but Dan was uncertain if it was meant for him or someone else until all the females moved to other chairs. He waited until Abby, Becca and Jemmy were seated before pulling out the chair and sitting down. He positioned himself and scooted up to the table. The cushion felt a little lumpy and uncertain, but he didn’t let that bother him—until he looked up and saw that everyone was staring at him.
    Suddenly Abby glared at John Odem. Obviously scolding him, she shook her finger, speaking furiously. Unsure what was going on, Dan looked at Becca.
    “John Odem’s a great prankster,” she explained with a wry smile, “and this time he meant to pull a trick on you, but the joke’s on him.” She movedher gaze to John and told him what Abby apparently had not.
    “Didn’t hear?” John said. “How could he not hear that?”
    Abby apparently spelled it out for him. John’s mouth gaped open so wide that Dan began