Driftwood Summer by Patti Callahan Henry Read Free Book Online Page A

imperceptibly, a tiny movement that might not have been a movement at all, but then she felt her body: her toes, then her legs, her arms and then her rapid heartbeat. They were separate now and he stood, held his hand out to pull her up.
    Their words faded into the darkness as if they were spoken and unspoken at the same time; as if they were important and yet not at all, as if they were two people talking or maybe just one. Darkness, she understood later, easily confused the meaning of words, of skin touching skin.
    In their remaining summers together she tried to find that oneness again. When it was all over, when youth ended and he chose Maisy, she understood the lesson from the dock that night: she could never again call her feelings of intimacy and oneness love. Nor would she be fooled again into believing that her love was returned, that a boy felt more for her than friendship.
     
    Riley looked down the length of Pearson’s Pier and watched her son bait his hook, reminded herself to live in the moment while remembering the lessons of the past.
    The walk to the hospital ran north along the beach, then west at Sixth Avenue for five blocks inland. As she went through the front doors of the hospital, she shoved away the memory of her daddy’s last days here with lung cancer, his lucidity returning only briefly before agony followed when one morphine shot wore off and the next hadn’t yet arrived. She had rushed her words during those brief respites, in a hurry to tell him how much she loved him, how much he’d meant to her, how she cherished him, all the while wondering why she hadn’t said these words all her life.
    Kitsy Sheffield’s hospital room was on the fourth floor. Riley kissed her sleeping mama on the cheek, and grabbed the chart hanging off the bottom of the bed to read the night’s statistics— temperature, blood pressure and urine output. She’d learned the lingo during Daddy’s illness.
    Kitsy opened her eyes. “Where have you been?”
    “Right here.” Riley took her mama’s hand and smiled. “And you?”
    “Is that supposed to be funny?” Kitsy fashioned her eyes into narrow slits through which Riley had no idea how she could see.
    “Unfortunately, yes. That was supposed to be funny. I was working, and then I waited for Brayden to come home after his last day of school.”
    “I was here alone all night, and then for most of today. What if they’d given me the wrong medication, or . . . forgotten about me?”
    “Mama, I can’t sleep here—I have Brayden. And I can’t imagine who could ever, ever forget about you.”
    “Where are your sisters?”
    Riley squeezed her hand. “They’re both on their way. Adalee is driving down from the university this morning; I talked to her last night. Maisy is flying in tomorrow afternoon, five days earlier than she was supposed to come.”
    Kitsy’s eyes opened wide. “Maisy is coming early? You mean, all this time, all these years, all I had to do was fall down the damn staircase to make her come home? So, all my girls will finally be here.”
    Riley laughed and released her mama’s hand, dug into her purse for a muffin wrapped in a napkin. “I brought you contraband—your favorite cranberry muffin from the store.”
    Kisty attempted to scoot up in bed, but with her ribs wrapped and her wrist in a cast, she couldn’t move. She exhaled. “Thanks, darling. Now give me updates on the party.”
    “Mama, you’ve only been here for one day. There’s nothing new to report.”
    “I will delegate responsibilities to each of you girls,” Kitsy said as she held her muffin in the air. “I have sorted it in my mind and I want to tell each of you what to do. I can still write. Thank God I sprained my left wrist.” She held up her muffin. “You’ll help me and take notes, Maisy will stay for the summer and Adalee will run—”
    “Whoa, Mama. Your only job right now is to get better. We can handle the rest.”
    “No, you can’t. I’m the only