Untethered by Julie Lawson Timmer Read Free Book Online Page B

from the front-hall floor. “Charlotte,” she said, straightening and turning the cards over. None had been opened. “Seriously?”
    Char hadn’t been able to face the cards that had been dropping through the mail slot for the past few days. At first, she had let them lie there, but Colleen, who had been checking in every day, had clucked and shaken her head and piled them into neat stacks on the foyer table with strict orders that Char needed to stop stepping over them and start picking them up from the floor and reading them.
    â€œWill must have knocked those off when he went past,” Char said.
    â€œUh-huh.”
    Allie appeared then, jumping down to the front hall from the top of the three-step stairway that led to the living room at the front of the house. “Sydney!”
    Sydney squeezed past the adults and ran to Allie, and Char pretended to listen to Colleen chastising her about the mail as she kept an ear tuned to the girls. Eavesdropping had always been a bad habit of hers. It was like reading the kid’s diary, Bradley said once.
    â€œNot even close,” she told him. “There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy when you’re having a discussion in the same room as someone else.”
    He chortled. “What are you, a lawyer? It’s a bad habit. It’s not respectful. And it’s going to get you in trouble one day.”
    â€œI’ll quit, I’ll quit,” she promised. But she didn’t really mean it, and from the way he sighed, she knew he knew that. It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own bad habits, she had reasoned at the time, some of which had driven her crazy. Although, standing in the front hall now, she couldn’t remember a single one.
    â€œHey, Allie,” Sydney said. “You okay?”
    Char strained to hear Allie’s answer, but couldn’t.
    â€œSo, what’ve you been doing?” Sydney asked. Char could hear the sound of Sydney pulling off her boots and unzipping her coat.
    â€œNot much. We had brunch.”
    â€œOh, right, the brunch thing. Did your mom actually eat anything?”
    â€œShe didn’t come,” Allie said.
    â€œWhat? Why not?” Char heard Allie whisper something and Sydney sighed and said, “Whatever. Sorry. But maybe it’s for the best. You hate eating in the morning anyway, and the combination of food and your mom—”
    â€œNot the entire morning,” Allie said, “just the first part, when I get up. Breakfast: big no. Brunch: definite yes.”
    Char smiled. Every morning, Bradley had sat alone at the kitchen table, eating oatmeal or cold cereal or toast before work, while Char and Allie, nauseated at the thought of food so early, stayed as far away as they could. He once called out a lament that they were missing out on a key opportunity for family bonding, and Allie texted him from the living room: If I come anywhere near yourstinky breakfast I’ll barf all over the table and ruin your Norman Rockwell moment. You really want that?
    After that, it became a running joke. Every morning, he would ask if anyone would care to join him for a pleasant talk about world news over the most important meal of the day, and every morning, they would respond, “No thanks, Mr. Rockwell.”
    â€œRight,” Sydney said. “You’re so weird.” She laughed. “Anyway, look what Kate told me about Justin.”
    Char adjusted her head a fraction of an inch and saw Allie peering at her friend’s phone. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” Allie said.
    â€œFrom Kate?”
    â€œFrom Justin.”
    â€œHe’s still texting you?”
    Allie shrugged and looked over to see if the adults were listening. Char rolled her head dramatically, pretending she hadn’t been watching—just stretching. She put a hand on the back of her neck and swiveled her head the other way. “I must’ve slept funny,” she