Read Online When Light Breaks by Patti Callahan Henry - Free Book Online Page B

rubbed my forehead, my eyes, then glanced up at the round, black-numbered clock across the room. Our time wasn’t up, but Maeve was gone into sleep. I sighed, wanting more of her story.
     
    I started the car and leaned back on the seat, glancing at the clock: 8:45. No time for food—the tour meeting was in fifteen minutes. I turned the car out of the driveway and onto Main Street.
    The light turned red as I pulled into the intersection; I reached for my BlackBerry, chewed on the side of my nail, then typed “Jack Sullivan” into the Internet search engine.
    Neuroscientist and school principal were the first two results. I laughed; this was ridiculous. One does not punch in a name and find an address for a lost neighbor.
    My fingers flew over the miniature keys as I scrolled farther down to the third listing and read: “The Unknown Souls Band with songwriter Jack Sullivan will be the opening act on March 4th at Chastain Amphitheater in Atlanta, Georgia—”
    On the four-inch screen I stared at Jack and Jimmy Sullivan. Time slipped away like a river running backward, years reversed, and I was fourteen, desperate for the lost love from Mama, then Jack. I was waiting with an everlasting ache in the middle of my body.
    I stared down at the picture of the Unknown Souls. A band stood with Jack and Jimmy, grinning in a grainy black-and-white photograph. Instruments and microphones were scattered across a bridge over a train track.
    My breath caught deep in my lungs and stayed there—refusing to release in an exhale. My chest was gripped by the memory of his face, his hands, the way they splayed across the top of the bridge.
    Suddenly a long, obnoxious horn blared behind me. I jumped in my seat, looked up to a green light.
    My cell phone rang, and I grabbed it as I gunned the car through the light. “I’m going, I’m going,” I hollered to the truck behind me, whose occupant couldn’t hear me, but surely saw my waving hands.
    “Pardon?” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
    “Charlotte?”
    “Yep, who are you yelling at?”
    “Some impatient truck driver didn’t like how I hesitated for half a second when the light turned green.”
    The truck came up next to me; the dark-haired woman in the driver’s seat flicked an obscene gesture with her middle finger and gunned the truck in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting her. The leftover morning Starbucks, my purse and a pile of folders in the passenger’s seat flew toward the front of the car in a scattered array. I reached over in a futile attempt to grab at the flying objects and skidded to the right until my tires ran against the curb.
    I jerked the steering wheel to the left, moving the car into the next lane. The gut-gripping sound of metal on metal filled my ears. I veered back toward the right and slammed on the brakes, stopping the car on the shoulder of the two-lane road and dropping my head onto the steering wheel.
    A moment later, I looked up at a man who stood at my passenger-side window, his hand over his eyebrow below a scratch. He knocked on the window; without thinking, I shoved the door open, hitting him in the groin. He bent down as I stepped from the car.
    “Oh, oh . . . are you okay? Oh . . .” Fatigue and frustration swamped me.
    He laughed. “I’m fine.” He stood up; he was at least two feet taller than me. “I was checking on you. I thought you’d passed out on the steering wheel.”
    I reached up as if to touch his face, the scratch above his eye. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
    “Shit, my fault. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt.” He glanced inside my car. “Looks like you got yourself quite a mess there, little lady.” He then ran his hand over my front left bumper; it was crushed and distorted, digging into the front tire.
    I groaned. “Not now.”
    “No convenient time for a fender bender, huh?” he asked.
    His eyes were so brown they combined with his pupils, and his curls were the same color