The Sound of Glass by Karen White Read Free Book Online Page A

explained why my husband had left this place and never wanted to share his past with me.
    We both looked up at the sound of car doors slamming. Mr. Williams began walking toward a rusty iron gate disguised by the climbing jasmine on the garden wall. “It might be members from the Heritage Society bringing casseroles in the hopes of getting a peek inside the house.”
    He lifted a heavy latch and turned a small doorknob before pulling on the gate, the vines and time blocking his efforts. “I’ll find some pruning shears and cut these away this Saturday, if you like. Let’s go back through the house to the front door.”
    As we stood inside the foyer, I heard a woman’s voice outsideand the sound of footsteps crossing the wooden floorboards of the porch. I threw open the door before anyone could ring the doorbell.
    I found myself staring into large blue eyes that were surrounded by what could only be false eyelashes. She had on fresh pink lipstick, and her blond hair was worn long and wavy with a pouf at the crown. Her silk blouse looked expensive but was unbuttoned one button too far, and her slim skirt revealed a long expanse of legs—legs ending in impossibly high heels.
    I was so busy staring that I didn’t see the young boy standing beside her until I heard him speak. “Merritt?”
    A small breeze teased the wind chimes, making them all sing in unison, the sound more like an alarm bell to me as I stared at the boy. He had a slight build, and seemed far enough from puberty that his cheeks still had a little baby fat despite his lean frame. He had thick, dark hair with a cowlick that parted his hair at an odd angle. His eyes, hidden behind thick-rimmed dark glasses, were bright blue, enlarged and blinking at me like an owl. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I’d seen eyes like that before. And the same dark hair. They were just like my father’s. They were just like mine.
    The woman put her arm around the boy’s shoulder and smiled, and I saw how beautiful she was, and was reminded again that she was only five years older than me. “We wanted to surprise you, Merritt. We were going to go to Maine, but when I called the museum where you used to work, they told me you had moved to South Carolina. When I explained to the woman who I was, she gave me your lawyer’s name. And when I stopped by the lawyer’s just now, the woman there gave me your address.” She smiled even more broadly, as if she were delivering a much-anticipated gift, and moved the boy to stand in front of her. “This is your brother, Owen.”
    I was too stunned to speak, my tongue heavy in my mouth. The boy stepped forward and offered me his hand to shake. “Actually, I’m going by Rocky now. Rocky Connors.”
    I stared down at his hand, soft and pale with bony knuckles justlike our father’s, then took it. His grip was surprisingly strong, his skin warm. He blinked up at me through the thick lenses of his glasses with uncertainty, but his handshake wasn’t tentative. I imagined my father teaching him how to shake hands like a man. It was the kind of thing he’d once taught me.
    Mr. Williams cleared his throat, waiting to be introduced, and I turned to him, trying to find a way to explain that I had no family regardless of the two people standing on the front porch.
    The boy slid his hand from my grasp and turned to the lawyer. “I’m Rocky Connors, sir. It’s nice to meet you.”
    “I’m Mr. Williams. It’s nice to meet you, too, Rocky.” He turned to Loralee with a hopeful expression, as if she might want to explain who they were and why they were there.
    But she’d stepped past us and was looking up at the row of sea-glass wind chimes, her expression like a child’s on Christmas Day. “Mermaid’s tears,” she said, clasping her hands together over her Barbie-like chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful in my whole life.”
    Mr. Williams smiled at her as if he’d never seen anything as beautiful as she