Beneath Wandering Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

can we leave Mom to deal with this alone?”
    “Your mother is tougher than you think, and
I’ll talk to your teachers. Besides, spring break is next week, so that takes care of the first nine days.” Dad folds up his research material. A vulnerable expression I’ve never witnessed consumes his face. It’s the face of a helpless man. A man with no backup strategy and no other options.
    “I hate to leave him, and when I really think about it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to. But I hate sitting here doing nothing even more. This is the
one
thing we can do for him,
mija
. Don’t you see? A miracle is all we have left to hope for.”
    Maybe so, but I’ll hedge my bets and put my faith in modern medicine. Still, if Dad wants to get me excused from school, he can go for it. The teachers are the only ones who will notice I’m gone anyway. That reminds me—I need to call Brent. Based on his last text, he’s wondering why I went MIA.
    Tried calling yesterday, but it kept going straight to voicemail. Haven’t seen you online either. Everything okay? Call me soon. I miss you, Gabi girl.
    In spite of everything, the hint of desperation pleases me, I’m not gonna lie.
    Dad pulls his credit card out of his wallet. “Your mom and I have a meeting with Lucas’s doctors this afternoon. Why don’t you take Matteo and go look for a backpack and boots at the Base Exchange.”
    “The selection will be limited, but I’ll check.” Taking Dad’s credit card almost feels like taking an olive branch—a small sign he’s starting to trust me again.
    That or he has no other choice.
    Mom brings out the rest of the pancakes and calls my little brother to the table. We eat beneath an oppressive silence. Each of us, even Matteo, glances at the one empty chair. Lucas’s absence is as thick as maple syrup. It sticks to everything.
    A golden glob falls from my fork, landing on the oak table. Most of the furniture we bought for this apartment is that cheap Scandinavian stuff that looks like it was designed for a space station, but the one exception is our dining room table, which we shipped from the States. It’s nothing special, but it’s been with us everywhere. I could tell a story about every dent, every scratch, every finger-painting episode gone wrong. When we were little, Lucas and I staked permanent claims to our seats by carving our initials into the wood. Mom was upset, but even she had to admit that it cut down on our dinner time squabbling over who sat where.
    I run my fingers across the
L.S.
gash
,
tracing serrated lines etched by a much younger hand. Lucas hasn’t sat at our table for all the months he’s been deployed, but this feels different.
    This absence doesn’t feel so temporary.
    “I should have known this was a bad idea.” Mom throws her fork down and scoots her chair across the hard floor, slicing the room in half. Into
before
and
after
. “It will never be the same. Never.”
    A moment later we hear her muffled sobs in the kitchen as she throws Lucas-sized portions into the garbage disposal and starts washing the dishes.
    Matteo drowns his last bite in syrup and gives me a look that’s way too perceptive for a kid who just turned five. Then again, Matteo has already seen more of this world than most kids three times his age.
    “Mommy forgot,” he whispers, eyes wary. “Blueberry pancakes are Lucas’s favorite.”
    • • •
    “We’ll pick you up in a few hours,” Dad says from the rolled-down window of his beat-up bimmer. I help Matteo out of the old BMW and onto the sidewalk that leads to the main gate of Ramstein Air Force base. Army kids like to joke—okay,
whine
—that Air Force kids get all the best facilities on their bases, but at least we live close enough to benefit, too. No other installation abroad can boast the largest shopping facility in Europe, complete with a Macaroni Grill and a movie theater with stadium-style seats. God bless America.
    “Why don’t you grab dinner on your