All Fall Down Read Online Free PDF Page B

going to do?” she managed to ask through gritted teeth.
    Mia sighed, the sound too young and helpless for a thirty-two-year old woman. “What can I do?”
    â€œWhat can you…” Melanie made a sound of disbelief. “Call the cops. Have his butt hauled in, then press charges. Leave him, for heaven’s sake!”
    â€œYou make it sound so easy.”
    â€œIt is. You just do it.”
    â€œThe way you left Stan?”
    â€œYes.” Melanie went around the counter to her sister. She caught her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “Leaving Stan was the hardest thing I everdid. But it was the best. I knew that then. I know it now.”
    Mia started to cry. “I’m not strong like you, Mellie. I’m not brave. I never have been.”
    â€œYou can be.” She squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I’ll help you.”
    Mia shook her head. “No, you can’t. I’m just a sniveling, stupid excuse for a—”
    â€œStop it! That’s our father talking. And Boyd. It’s not true.” She searched her sister’s gaze. “You don’t think I was scared when I left Stan? I was scared shitless. I’d never had to take care of myself, let alone a child, too. I didn’t know how I would support us, if I could. And I was terrified he’d try to take Casey away from me.”
    Melanie shuddered, remembering her terror, the way she had second-guessed her every decision. Her ex-husband was a prominent lawyer, a partner in one of Charlotte’s top firms. He could have wrested custody away from her without even breaking a sweat—he still could. As it was, he had pulled strings and gotten her application to the CMPD academy denied.
    She had left him anyway. For herself. And Casey. She hadn’t been the person Stan needed or wanted, though for a long time she had tried to mold herself into that woman. One who needed a man to lean on, one who was satisfied to sit back and let her husband call the shots while she tended to house and home. She had failed miserably. And in the process had become a person she had neither known nor liked.
    Their marriage had become a battleground. And a battleground had been no place to raise a child.
    â€œYou can do it,” she said again, fiercely. “I know you can, Mia.”
    Mia shook her head, her expression defeated. “I wish I were like you. But I’m not.”
    Melanie drew her sister into her arms and held her tightly. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”

6
    W hen Melanie and Casey arrived home an hour and a half later, after a quick stop for fast food, they found Ashley waiting for them. Melanie wasn’t surprised to see her. A drug company rep, her territory the Carolinas, she often dropped by Melanie’s on her way back into town.
    â€œLook who’s here, Casey,” Melanie said, drawing to a stop in the driveway. “Aunt Ashley.”
    McDonald’s Kid’s Meal forgotten, the child bolted out of the car the moment Melanie got his safety buckle undone. “Aunt Ashley! Look what I got from Aunt Mia! A megaman!”
    Melanie smiled as she watched her son launch himself into her sister’s outstretched arms. Her sisters had always been the most important people in her life and their love for Casey warmed her heart.
    Melanie collected her purse and the Kid’s Meal, then crossed to the two. “Hey, sis, have a productive trip?”
    Ashley lifted Casey, propping him on her hip, then turned to Melanie. She smiled. “You know pharmaceutical sales—drugs, the wave of the present.”
    Melanie laughed. Her sister was a paradox. Although extremely successful at what she did, she wasa believer in natural and holistic healing. Whenever one of them got sick, she suggested herbs, roots and teas instead of one of the miracle drugs she made a living selling.
    They