The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding Read Free Book Online

away at camp. Then again, if even one boy had ever so much as breathed on me, maybe I would be more understanding.
    After breakfast I help with dishes again and then sort of assist Brad organizing the CDs and records from the remaining boxes onto the new shelf. He clearly doesn’t actually need my help but is nice enough not to state the obvious.
    My mother sits near us in her leather chair with her laptop, glaring at the screen and occasionally typing. At some point it hits me that I’m probably witnessing her at work on a future bestselling novel, which feels pretty special.
    Back in freshman English for extra credit we could write an essay about a modern classic. I already had an A, but extra credit always seemed stupid to turn down, plus the shelf of books to choose from looked way more interesting than slogging through The Odyssey . I picked a book, Destruction , completely at random (okay, not completely at random—I liked the cover) but once I opened it, I wondered if a higher power—Fate? God? . . . My English teacher?—was at work.
    To Devan , the dedication read. While our paths may never cross, be sure you’ve never left my mind .
    Back then—and my whole life leading up to it—I basically assumed every woman of a certain age was my mother. I didn’t know her name or have any photos, so I did a lot of guessing. If she had mousy brown hair or brown eyes, total mom contender. All that and a little younger than Dad and Tracie? Bonus points. I never knew when I’d turn a corner and smack right into her. And we would know, and it would be amazing.
    I’m aware that sounds more than a little crazy, but when no one tells you anything, what are you supposed to think? There never was a big talk; I just always knew Tracie wasn’t my mother. As I got older and overheard things and figured out the timeline of events, there was enough to put together: Dad cheated on Tracie when he was away at college, and it resulted in me. Lucky us. Maybe without my existence Tracie could have gotten over Dad’s mistake, but instead she had to see me every single day.
    It was probably even worse that she couldn’t have her own kids. When I was little I kept expecting to eventually get a younger brother or sister, and I asked Tracie about it once. Of course it was a super invasive question but at the time I didn’t know that. Little kids think super invasive questions are just part of conversation. It was a long time ago but I still remember how she completely froze.
    “You think that’s funny?” she asked. “You think you’d be here if I could?”
    I mean, of course she hates me.
    So, okay, maybe it was jumping to conclusions to assume Reece Malcolm, who wrote this book, was my mother. But on the other hand, my name isn’t exactly common. Plus the only other thing Dad ever said about my mother, besides that she was younger, was that she liked to write. It was a big leap from liking to write to writing an award-winning bestseller, but my brain makes big jumps all the time. And Dad had gone to college in New York, and Reece Malcolm’s bio in the back of the book confirmed she went to college in New York, too.
    So I tested out this theory. I took Destruction out at home where Tracie could see me. Honestly, I was prepared for her not to react at all. By then I was used to having crazy thoughts about who might or might not be my mother.
    So I literally jumped when she swiped the book from my hands.
    “I can’t believe you’d read this in front of me,” she said. Like I knew for sure and planned it. Sometimes Tracie gave me way too much credit.
    But also—I realized that meant it was true. For once I hadn’t put way too much stock in my imagination. That book was written by my mother . My mother was an actual person who actually existed and I finally had tangible proof of that. My mother dedicated a book—a modern classic to me.
    “What, you have nothing to say about this?” Tracie asked.
    I hadn’t meant to say