24 Hours Read Online Free PDF

condition until he knew more about it than most rheumatologists. He had done the same with Abby’s juvenile diabetes. Being his own doctor allowed him to do things he otherwise might not have been allowed to, like flying. On good days the pain didn’t interfere with his control of the aircraft, and Will only flew on good days. Using this rationale, he had medicated himself to get through the flight physical, and the limited documentary records of his disease made it unlikely that his deception would ever be discovered. He only wished the problems in his marriage were as easy to solve.
    A high-pitched beeping suddenly filled the Baron’s cockpit. Will cursed himself for letting his attention wander. Scanning the instrument panel for the source of the alarm, he felt a hot tingle of anxiety along his arms. He saw nothing out of order, which made him twice as anxious, certain that he was missing something right in front of his eyes. Then relief washed through him. He reached down to his waist, pulled the new SkyTel off his belt, and hit the retrieve button. The alphanumeric pager displayed a message in green backlit letters:
WE ALREADY MISS YOU. BREAK A LEG TONIGHT.
LOVE, KAREN AND ABBY.
WITH SUGAR AND KISSES ON TOP.
     
    Will smiled and waggled the Baron’s wings against the cerulean sky.
     
    Karen stopped the Expedition beside her mailbox and shook her head at the bronze biplane mounted atop it. She had always thought the decoration juvenile. Reaching into the box, she withdrew a thick handful of envelopes and magazines and skimmed through them. There were brokerage statements, party invitations, copies of Architectural Digest, Mississippi Magazine, and The New England Journal of Medicine.
    “Did I get any letters?” Abby asked from the backseat.
    “You sure did.” Karen passed a powder blue envelope over the front seat. “I think that’s for Seth’s birthday party.”
    Abby opened the invitation as Karen climbed the long incline of the drive. “How long till my birthday?”
    “Three more months. Sorry, Charlie.”
    “I don’t like being five and a half. I want to be six.”
    “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. You’ll be thirty-six before you know it.”
    When the house came into sight, Karen felt the ambivalence that always suffused her at the sight of it. Her first emotion was pride. She and Will had designed the house, and she had handled all the contracting work herself. Despite the dire warnings of friends, she had enjoyed this, but when the family finally moved in, she had felt more anticlimax than accomplishment. She could not escape the feeling that she’d constructed her own prison, a gilded cage like all the others on Crooked Mile Road, each inhabited by its own Mississippi version of Martha Stewart, the new millennium’s Stepford wives.
    Karen pulled into the garage bay nearest the laundry room entrance. Abby unhooked her own safety straps but waited for her mother to open her door.
    “Let’s get some iced tea,” Karen said, setting Abby on the concrete. “How do you feel?”
    “Good.”
    “Did you tee-tee a lot this afternoon?”
    “No. I need to go now, though.”
    “All right. We’ll check your sugar after. Then we’ll get the tea. We’re going to have some fun today, kid. Just us girls.”
    Abby grinned, her green eyes sparkling. “Just us girls!”
    Karen opened the door that led from the laundry room to the walk-through pantry and kitchen. Abby squeezed around her and went inside. Karen followed but stopped at the digital alarm panel on the laundry room wall and punched in the security code.
    “All set,” she called, walking through the pantry to the sparkling white kitchen. “You want crackers with your tea?”
    “I want Oreos!”
    Karen squeezed Abby’s shoulder. “You know better than that.”
    “It’s only a little while till my shot, Mom. Or you could give me that new kind of shot right now. Couldn’t you?”
    Abby was too smart for her own good. Conventional forms