Cruel World by Joe Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

sweating buckets.”
    “How’s your father?”
    “The same, still sleeping.”
    “The others?”
    He hesitated. “They’re fine.”
    She nodded, her hand sliding toward his over the blankets. He took it.
    “I left him,” she said after a time.
    “Who?”
    “My son. You asked me the other day if he left me. He didn’t; I left him.”
    Quinn frowned and waited. Teresa’s chest was rising slower than before, but her fingers were strong in his own. When she spoke again, her voice was lower than a whisper, the sound of the wind in the pines.
    “His name is Jeffrey. I was twenty when I got pregnant. Second year of college and his father was a married man, though I didn’t know it at the time. When he found out, he threatened me. Said that if I told anyone who the father was, he’d find a way to remove me from school. Said he’d keep me from getting in anywhere else that I applied. He was a man of power and was kind up until that point.” She turned her head to the side, toward the window. The shades were open and the sky was still the seamless blue, unstitched by any clouds.
    “I wanted to teach so badly, you see. It had been my dream since I was a little girl. My first teacher’s name was Mrs. Felling. She was beautiful and kind and had such a way with us kids. She could get us to do anything, learn anything, and that’s a real gift. Many teach but few are teachers. I was so young and stupid and scared. I knew I couldn’t raise a baby on my own. So when he told me that he’d keep me from becoming what I’d always wanted, I made a decision.”
    Her grip on his hand tightened and she shifted her gaze back to him, her eyes clouded with memory and something else, grief.
    “The couple that adopted him were from Boston. He was a truck driver and she worked in a bank. They couldn’t have children of their own but wanted them desperately. We agreed on a name for him the day he was born and three days later I said goodbye to him forever.”
    Despite the sheen of sweat that coated her face, he could spot the tracks of her tears easily. They ran down the grooves that time had worn in her cheeks and disappeared below her chin.
    “It was the biggest mistake of my life, one I never got over. He’s out there somewhere and I hope he’s safe. The last I heard he was a father himself with two children of his own, grandchildren that I’ll never meet. And I don’t deserve to meet them.”
    “You can’t say that,” Quinn said, his voice thick. “That’s not true.”
    She coughed again, but it was feeble and the fit lasted only seconds. She appeared further away somehow, more distant than she had been moments ago even though neither of them had moved.
    “Then I came here and you were my light all these years. You were such a good student, so smart. You’re the son I got to raise as a second chance. You’re ready for the world now. Don’t be afraid. The fear…” she wheezed again, not a spasm at all but a constriction within her that didn’t allow her to speak. “…it’s a thief. It steals from us if we let it.”
    “You need to rest. Here, have some water.” He tried to retrieve the glass from the table but she held his hand fast.
    “Don’t let it steal from you. Don’t be afraid…” Her voice drifted and he saw the ocean in her eyes, a wave receding from the beach that didn’t return. “…my son.”
    The fingers within his hand were brittle and very dry. The shine of perspiration was gone and her mouth hung open a little, her last breath escaping without any effort to draw another.
    “Teresa,” he said, already knowing somewhere inside where all truths are told that there would be no answer.
    He rose and placed a hand against her lined cheek. Her skin was warm again, like that of floorboards resting in a setting sun, the heat draining along with the light. Words came from his mouth but he didn’t know what they meant. They sounded alien to him, a language he’d never spoken before made of