Return to Me by Justina Chen Read Free Book Online Page A

for my panic, no logical reason for my complete loss of appetite. It was just there, as real as a frightened heartbeat.
    Don’t eat, don’t eat
, I wanted to warn Mom.
    I needn’t have worried. Under my watchful gaze, Mom pushed the gooey ribs around on her plate for a few minutes before she abandoned them, uneaten, too.
    “Too hot to eat?” Dad asked me.
    “Yeah,” I said right as the first Roman candle burst in the sky, showering gold dust above us.
    In the afterglow of a crimson starburst, I caught Dad shrugging as Mom waved off a piece of pie that he offered. He took a big bite, the juice from the apple pie dewing his chin. I couldn’t bear to watch him eat so greedily while I was sick to my stomach with foreboding. So I lowered myself onto my back and stared up at the night sky splintering with fireworks.

Chapter Six
    B reakfast the next morning was a grim affair of leftovers, since the refrigerator was the Sahara desert of food, desolate in its emptiness. Back on Lewis Island, Mom had vigilantly stocked our fridge with produce from local farms, and gallons of milk so fresh you could hear cows moo with every poured cup.
    “But I want cereal,” Reid said plaintively, his mouth curling in disgust at the cold rib glistening with coagulated fat on the paper towel that served as his plate.
    With an elbow propped on the kitchen table, Mom leaned her head against her open palm, then methodically smoothed her hair off her forehead. Her eyes opened slowly and she said, “We’ll have Dad drive us to the grocery store as soon as he’s done with his shower.”
    “I’m going to learn how to drive a stick,” Reid grumbled.
    “Good idea,” Mom said. “I told your dad it would have made more sense for him to buy an automatic in the first place.”
    By the time Dad appeared in the kitchen, hair damp, I had fashioned a spoon out of a binder clip for Reid. The rejiggered clip so appealed to Reid that he managed a few bites of the potato salad, enough to keep his low-blood-sugar grumpiness at bay. That won me such a heartfelt, relieved “Thanks, honey” from Mom, I felt exhausted but didn’t know why exactly. Maybe it had something to do with the restless night I had had, too uneasy to sleep for fear of what I’d dream. I chalked that up to never spending any real time in a house this large.
    “Hey, Thom, your mother left a message on my phone. She wants you to call this morning,” Mom said as she set a paper towel in front of Dad.
    With a sigh, Dad cast an exasperated scowl at the empty counter where our espresso machine should have resided. “God, I need coffee.”
    “Sorry, no coffee,” said Mom, whipping around from the fridge with a flourish. “But… ta-da! Breakfast is served.”
    Dad’s expression when Mom presented the ribs to him so mirrored Reid’s revulsion that she and I laughed, and I made a mental note to text this to Jackson. Dad shrugged self-consciously without taking a bite of what he had so eagerly devoured the night before.
    “I’ll pick up some breakfast on the way to the airport,” he said.
    “You’re leaving?” I asked. Dad’s announcement surprised Reid so much that he stopped spooning potato salad into his mouth.
    “But it’s Sunday.” Mom leaned back against the counter as if she had been punched.
    Dad held up his phone, but whether it was the culprit or the alibi, I couldn’t tell. “I told you about this last week.”
    “I don’t think so,” Mom said flatly. “Rebecca needs a way to get to her interview tomorrow, and I need to go grocery shopping. I thought we agreed you were going to drive us.”
    “God, Bits.” Dad shook his head and stared out the kitchen window like he wanted to escape. “You can just rent a car.”
    The last time I had felt tension this sharp-edged, I had been a half-drowned girl in my hospital bed. Even though I couldn’t understand what was so important that Dad had to leave us when we had just arrived, I assured him, “Dad, it’s no