Fragile Beasts by Tawni O’Dell Read Free Book Online

where she’s standing with Mom and Aunt Jen.
    “Hey,” I call out to her happily, maybe too happily under the circumstances.
    I stoop down and hold out my arms.
    “Aren’t you gonna give me a hug?”
    She looks up at Mom, and Mom nods her head.
    “Give your brother a hug,” she commands and Krystal does but not very enthusiastically.
    “I almost didn’t recognize you. You look all grown up in that dress.”
    She looks at Mom again, and Mom nods again.
    “Thanks,” she says.
    I’m beginning to get this creepy feeling that she can’t say anything to me without Mom’s okay. It’s a stupid idea. It wouldn’t make any sense but I can’t help feeling it.
    “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask. “Just the two of us?”
    She flashes Mom a look of panic. Mom shrugs and nods while she lights up a cigarette.
    I take a few steps away. She hesitates, then catches up to me.
    “You sure got quiet since the last time I saw you.”
    She doesn’t say anything.
    Her whole manner has changed. She doesn’t smile, and she’s lost her spunk. Maybe it’s all part of the growing-up process for girls but when I think back to girls I knew when I was ten, they were some of the bounciest, chattiest, craziest creatures I ever knew.
    “So how do you like Arizona?”
    “We have a pool,” she says flatly.
    “That sounds great. If I had a pool I’d swim every day. Do you remember going swimming in the pond at the Hamiltons’ farm? You used to love to jump off the tire swing into the water. You used to scream so loud.”
    “Our pool is clean,” she states.
    “Yeah, well, I’m sure it is.”
    I’m starting to get even more creeped out and also a little annoyed.
    “So how do you like living with what’s-his-name?”
    This topic wakes her up. She opens her eyes wide and throws her head back.
    “Mom told me you’d ask that.”
    “It’s just a question.”
    “Jeff’s nice. Much nicer than Dad.”
    Her words feel like a punch in the gut.
    “You shouldn’t say stuff like that. Dad was always nice to you.”
    The color starts rising in her pale cheeks. I hadn’t noticed before but her freckles are gone. It doesn’t make sense. They always got darker in the sun. After a summer of sitting on the steel bleachers at Klint’s games, they used to stand out against her skin like a spattering of cinnamon.
    “Do you remember that time he wouldn’t let me go horseback riding with Ashley Riddle?”
    I do remember because I had to sit in the backseat of a car with her for two hours while she cried and screamed about it.
    “You were too little to go, plus Klint had the Dog Days doubleheader that weekend.”
    She screws up her face triumphantly.
    “He always loved you and Klint more.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Mom told me you’d say that.”
    “It’s not true. Dad loved you very much. He missed you like crazy.”
    “Then why’d he kick us out?”
    Another punch to the gut.
    “Dad didn’t kick you out,” I cry. “Mom left.”
    “Mom told me you’d say that.”
    “I was there Krystal. I know what happened.”
    I saw the look on Dad’s face when he found her note. I even saw the note. It said: “I’ve found someone else. Krystal’s with me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave us alone.” She didn’t mention me and Klint at all. Dad left it sitting on the kitchen table for a week before Bill made him throw it away. Dad wasn’t embarrassed by it. He didn’t care who saw it. He constantly wandered into the room and picked it up and just held it. I couldn’t tell if he did this in order to make himself believe it was real or if it was because it was the last thing she had touched.
    “You don’t know for sure,” Krystal says. “You only know what Dad told you, and he was a liar.”
    I can’t have this conversation anymore. I’m starting to feel sick. I reach into the pocket of my suit pants and bring out her silver Barbie doll shoe.
    “Here. I found this in the house. I thought you might