A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White Read Free Book Online Page A

accelerator, let the car coast on its own, losing speed. A driver behind her laid on the horn, honking for her to accelerate, but she did not. Without Julia even instructing Ruthie to do so, she put on her right blinker, steered the car over to the side of the road, and pressed hard on the brake.
    “Put it in park,” said Julia, her voice calm, soothing.
    Ruthie obeyed.
    The two girls sat in the car, not saying anything.
    They switched seats so Julia could drive. First she drove them to the BP on Peachtree so Ruthie could get a Sprite and then back up Peachtree Battle until they reached Memorial Park, which occupied several acres of land. Sometimes she and Julia would run along the park’s perimeter, Ruthie always tiring out before her sister. Deep in the park itself was an area with swings and a slide, wood chips on the ground. It was empty. Julia and Ruthie walked to it, sat on the swings.
    “Remember how you used to tell me not to swing too high or I’d flip over the bar?” Ruthie asked.
    “That once happened to me,” said Julia, smiling. “I had red marks from gripping the chains so tightly when I flipped. Otherwise I would have come slamming to the ground.”
    “You are so full of it,” said Ruthie.
    Julia smiled.
    “The moon didn’t follow you, either,” said Ruthie.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “At night, when we were in the back of the car while Dad was driving us back from dinner or something, you used to tell me that you cast a spell on the moon to make it follow you wherever you went. Then you’d point the moon out to me through the window, and the whole drive home I would watch it follow us.”
    “Face it,” said Julia. “I’m full of magic.”
    “Ha,” said Ruthie. “You couldn’t really cough up money, either.”
    Julia used to amaze Ruthie with that trick. She would cough, hold her hand to her mouth, and pull away a ten-dollar bill.
    “You forget I’m part Mattaponi,” said Julia. “On my dad’s side. It gives me mystical powers.”
    “Okay, so if being, like, one-sixteenth Indian gives you mystical powers, use them to tell me where Mom and Dad are right now.”
    Julia sighed, and Ruthie thought she might not answer, that Ruthie had annoyed her by bringing up the subject they were trying to avoid. Ruthie pushed against the ground with her feet and started swinging in earnest.
    “Honestly,” said Julia. “I think they’re gone. I mean, maybe some of their ash floated into the atmosphere, and in a billion years will become a part of a star. But other than that . . .”
    Julia shrugged her shoulders, defeated.
    Ruthie felt an ache in her chest. “You don’t believe in heaven?” she asked, remembering afterwards one of her father’s favorite lawyer sayings: “Never ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.”
    “No,” said Julia. “I’m sorry, but I kind of think this is it.”
    Ruthie wondered why, given her sister’s capacity for storytelling, Julia couldn’t believe—or even just pretend to believe—that their parents were more than dusty, weightless things.
    Ruthie felt so strange swinging back and forth with her sister. Swinging made her realize, in a way that she had not before, how thoroughly the laws of physics had been changed. Before the accident, before the funeral, before Julia told her that she was to go to Virden and Ruthie to San Francisco, she had been anchored so securely to the world. What a terrible thing to now be loosed.

Chapter Two
    The day after the funeral one of the attorneys from Phil’s firm, John Henry Parker, arrived at Julia and Ruthie’s house to read the will. It was raining outside, raining hard, and he was wet, smiling apologetically at Aunt Mimi as he stood in the entry hall of the house, his overcoat dripping.
    “I usually carry an umbrella,” he said.
    “You poor thing,” said Aunt Mimi. Though she was Naomi’s age, Mimi looked younger. She was wearing slim black pants and a bright green button-down