Grave Intent by Deborah LeBlanc Read Free Book Online Page B

felt
happy but cheated. It was as if she had looked away for only a
second and some giant clock in nature had suddenly sped up, turning
her child into a woman.
    Anna let her hand fall to her side and peered
over at the long double windows to her right. Such a beautiful day,
so bright, so full of promise—
    “I won’t ruin my new skirt,” Thalia had
insisted. “I promise. I’ll even throw a blanket over Joe-Joe’s back
to make sure it stays clean. Just once around the field,
please?”
    Anna had been basting a lamb quarter over an
open pit when she first heard the shouting. She looked on as
everyone ran toward the west end of the park where one of their
quarter horses bucked and neighed wildly. It took Anna a moment to
recognize the rust-colored animal as Thalia’s Joe-Joe. Two
arrhythmic beats of her heart later, she spotted the still,
crumpled form on the ground.
    She’d ran, feeling her soul melt inside her,
hearing it whisper with horrid certitude and in breathless
agony— She’s gone. Thalia’s gone.
    A muted clatter drew Anna’s attention away
from the windows, and she looked down to see the knife lying on the
floor. There was an impressive splatter of blood on her clothes and
around her feet. Anna studied the dark swirls and droplets for a
moment, her mind straining to remember where the blood had come
from, then decided it didn’t matter.
    She turned and faced the hall behind her.
Somewhere in this building, in this maze of corridors and
antiseptic-scented rooms, lay her daughter’s lifeless body. They
had moved Thalia from the curtained cubicle where a scrawny-faced
doctor had said simply, “She’s dead,” to some other place in the
hospital. Anna had held onto Thalia’s hand, wanting to follow the
gurney, but no one would allow it. It had taken Ephraim and two
other men to pry her away from her daughter.
    “Anna, there you are!”
    Anna’s eyes focused on her sister-in-law,
Roslyn, who waddled down the hall toward her. The short,
pear-shaped woman had black mascara streaks running down both
cheeks.
    “We’ve been looking everywhere for—oh, my
God, you’re bleeding!” Roslyn hurried to Anna’s side, grabbed her
left wrist, and forced her hand palm up. “Oh, God, Anna, what did
you do?”
    “She’s gone, Rosy,” Anna said quietly. “My—my
baby’s gone.”
    “I know, honey,” Roslyn said shakily. She let
go of Anna’s wrist, then quickly dug through her shoulder bag and
pulled out a blue silk scarf. She wrapped it around Anna’s injured
hand.
    “They—they wouldn’t let me stay with
her.”
    “My poor, Anna,” Roslyn said, and softly
touched Anna’s cheek. “How hard this must be for you.”
    “She’s all alone now. Gone forever.”
    Roslyn shook her head slowly, tears following
mascara tracks. “She will never be alone, Anna. Thalia will be with
us always, in our hearts. Her memory will live there forever.”
    Anna stared at her numbly. “But you cannot
feel the breath of a memory or feel the warmth of its skin when it
kisses you goodnight, can you?”
    Roslyn let out a little sob, then stooped and
picked the knife up from the floor. After tucking it into her bag,
she stood and took hold of Anna’s arm. “Come. We need to find
someone to look at your hand. You’re cut pretty bad.”
    Anna felt Roslyn gently tug on her arm, and
before she knew it, she was following her obediently down the
corridor.
    Left then right, left again, left again, then
right. It seemed to take forever before they reached a set of steel
elevator doors. Roslyn pressed the down button, and for a fraction
of a second, Anna saw her reflection split in half when the shiny
metal doors opened. The image looked like she felt—divided, ripped
in two, never to be made whole again.
    A middle-aged woman with bottle-blonde hair
followed them into the elevator, and Anna pressed herself against
the back wall. Roslyn stood next to her. The hoist hummed, then
lowered them from the third floor to the second.