This Raging Light by Estelle Laure Read Free Book Online Page B

She tucked a piece of Wren’s hair behind her ear, wiped away some of the sleep sweat on her forehead. “Let’s rest our eyes. There’ll be so much to do when we wake up again.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, wanting to ask her questions about what was coming, about what had happened. Was he drunk? On drugs? Would she really let Dad come home after what he did to her, after what he said about us? I already sensed that there would be a before and there would be an after, and that the divide happened when my father put his hands on my mother’s neck, or maybe when he said he didn’t love her. There is no real recovering from that, is there? Some things can’t be unsaid, undone.
    â€œIs Dad going to be okay?” I ventured in a whisper.
    â€œOf course. We’re all going to be fine.”
    Mom smiled at me then, little creases pinched at the sides of her mouth, and reached her arm across Wren to rest it on my side.
    â€œHe’s a good man, you know,” she said.
    She sounded so desperate for it to be true that I had to turn over. I knew she wasn’t smiling because everything was going to be okay. She was smiling because it wasn’t, and there was nothing else for her to do.

Day 28 cont’d
    Wrenny’s face has angry couch imprints on it when I pull her book off of her chest, her cheeks flushed with pink sleep. She throws an arm around my waist, and we count stairs up. She never opens her eyes. She doesn’t have to. This is her home, and her feet know the way. She’s never lived anywhere else.
    â€œOne,” I say.
    â€œTwo,” she yawns.
    All the way to thirteen. She makes a left.
    â€œWhere you going, Wrenny?”
    â€œMom’s room.”
    â€œI think you should sleep in your own room tonight.” I mean, at some point this has to change, right?
    She looks at me like I deposited my brain at the bottom of the stairs.
    â€œI don’t like it in there.”
    â€œDid you brush your teeth?”
    â€œYes,” she says, and she looks me up and down. “Before I fell asleep on the couch.”
    â€œOkay,” I say, like that’s the reason we’re going in Mom’s room again, and not because I don’t have the energy for arguing.
    â€œYou look like a rock star,” she says, grinning now.
    Like a trollop,
I think. “Thanks,” I say.
    She runs a hand along my arm. “Sticky.”
    I do the same to her cheek. “Yeah, you too.”
    â€œAnd you smell like a burrito.”
    â€œJust keep the compliments coming, cookie.”
    â€œWell, you do. And maybe also a taco.”
    She makes straight for Mom’s bed, the rumpled sheets left from this morning, all the rushing, no time to make it. She crawls in, watches me as I get undressed and reach for a towel. There’s no way I’m getting into bed without a shower. There’s a sound not unlike peeling Velcro when I take off the short shorts and tank. I wrap myself in the towel, then hold it open, let myself cool down.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Wren asks. “You’re naked.”
    â€œI don’t know what I’m doing.” I cover myself. “That’s a very good question, though,” I mumble. I start to head for the bathroom.
    â€œAre you leaving me?”
    I stop in the doorway. There’s something in her voice.
    â€œI’m just going to shower,” I say. “I don’t want to get in bed smelling like Mexican food.”
    â€œCan I come?”
    â€œInto the bathroom with me?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t want to be by myself.”
    But I do.
    â€œI’ll sit on the toilet,” she says.
    â€œNo, Wren, you stay in here.” Clock says eleven thirty. She’s going to be a mess in the morning.
    â€œI could get in with you.”
    â€œInto the shower?”
    Nods.
    â€œStay here. Sleep.”
    Her eyes fill. Jaw sets hard.
    â€œYou can wait for me in there, I