Pieces of the Heart by Karen White Read Free Book Online Page B

moving to Atlanta. He says his dad’s been offered a job at a big Atlanta hospital and that they’ll still keep their house for vacations and weekends. But it won’t be the same. I have bad headaches now when I see Jude saying good-bye to me and I’m thinking that I’m seeing him move away. These headaches are so bad I can taste them, and they taste like black asphalt after a summer rainstorm. It’s burned and smoky and I wonder if it’s the dream I’m smelling or something real that hasn’t happened yet. That happens to me sometimes, and it’s scary. Mama knows something’s up with that because she’s looking at me weird. She doesn’t even have to ask if my head hurts—she just knows and makes me one of her hot drinks. But the dreams always stay after the headache goes away. It’s like when a camera flash goes off but you still see the light for a long time. I think life’s like that: Each moment is so quick, but you remember them forever.
    Jewel heard the front door shut and immediately slammed the diary closed, then stuck it under her mattress.
    Her father called from downstairs, “Jewel?”
    She stayed on her bed where she’d been reading and shouted, “I’m here!”
    Her father paused for a moment and then she heard his footsteps on the stairs. He hated shouting—he said it reminded him too much of growing up with Grandpa—and preferred to speak softly face-to-face. Which was fine with her as long as it didn’t require her to move from her comfortable perch.
    There was a brief tapping on her door and she did a quick check to make sure the diary was out of sight before telling him to come in.
    “I have to deliver some chairs to Grandma Rainy’s store—do you want to come with me?”
    Jewel leaped from the bed before remembering that wasn’t her style. She sat back down on the bed and shrugged. “Whatever.”
    Her dad stared at her for a long moment without saying anything. “Okay—go hop in the truck. I’m ready to go.”
    She waited until she heard her dad reach the bottom of the steps before grabbing her backpack and racing to follow him.
    Her dad had already started the truck and had it in gear by the time she climbed into the passenger seat. In her opinion, the whole switch from city lawyer to country woodcarver had been weird. But buying the pickup truck had sent her over the edge. She could even stand the new plaid shirts and jeans more than she could stand having to climb up to get inside the truck.
    The windows were rolled down and she stared out at the scenery as her dad wound the truck down the mountain. They passed an ice-cream shop and she almost asked him to stop before she remembered that she wasn’t speaking to him.
    As if reading her mind, he said, “I’ve been thinking. I’ll arrange for private swimming lessons for you, if you like. That way when you try out next year, you’ll be more confident and more ready to be on the team.”
    She shifted her head to look at him, keeping her face expressionless. She should cut him a break. After all, her mother had died while swimming, although technically it wasn’t the water that had killed her. Her mother had just happened to have had a massive brain aneurysm while swimming off the shore of Sullivan’s Island, where Jewel and her mom had been vacationing. As usual, her dad had stayed behind in Charleston to work and hadn’t been there. Yeah, she should cut him a break. Except he was being completely unreasonable about the swim-team thing.
    “I’m a good swimmer, Dad. I can handle it.”
    He didn’t say anything for a while but concentrated on navigating the winding road. Finally he said, “I think it’s best that you wait.”
    She turned her head back to the window and kept her eyes straight ahead, making all the scenery go by in a blur.
    Her dad missed the point entirely that she didn’t want to talk. He cleared his throat and said, “Have you had any headaches lately?”
    “Not really—not any bad ones,