Breathe Read Online Free PDF Page B

wiggled her toes and watched them move. “I was sick.”
    “You don"t look sick.”
    “I got better.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    He had to strain to hear her next words. “It was a bad night.” She picked up
    Mr. Wuzzie and gave him a squeeze. Out of fear? Or thanks?
    “But you"re okay now?” he asked.
    “Yep. Mom said you"d drive me to school if I got ready.”
    “She did?”
    Jessica nodded, looking up at him again, her brown eyes wide. “She said you
    got a job interview after lunch, and my school"s on your way. Is it lunchtime?”
    “I guess. Go get ready.”
    She hopped off the bed. “Mom left the keys to your truck on the table.” She
    spun around and ran out of the room, Mr. Wuzzie"s head smacking the side of her
    leg as she went.
    Lincoln let his head fall back to the headboard behind him. “Shit.”
    Not thinking about it was best. He"d wait to see what happened when he got
    behind the wheel again.

    * * *
“You know what irks me?”
    Jay didn"t want to encourage his mom. He kept his forehead plastered to the
    car window beside him and said nothing.
    “What"s that?” Todd asked.
    Leave it to his brother.
    She turned to face them in the backseat, her eyes squinted into slits like Todd
    was thirteen and had forgotten to take out the trash for the third week in a row.
    “They"re letting him drive.”

    Breathe

    21

    “The man has to work,” Jay said. His mom ignored him or perhaps didn"t hear.
    His voice had taken on that low whisper it did whenever he verbally disagreed with
    one of his parents.
    She said, “It makes me want to follow him around with a warning sign. He
    should have to register like those sex offenders do. So everyone knows who"s driving
    around their neighborhoods—around their children.”
    “We"re here,” his dad called out, his voice louder than usual. Maybe he was
    tired of listening to her too.
    Jay blew out a huff of air that fogged the window, blocking the sea of
    headstones and monuments. Who knew he"d be relieved to arrive at the Pleasant
    Valley Cemetery—which was neither a valley nor pleasant. The foils of advertising.
    Todd rolled his eyes after their mom exited the car. What would it be like to
    make the trip without his brother?
    The Shaws pulled in behind them, and the group began their journey along the
    same path they always followed. Thirty-two headstones south. A few mentions of
    “that damn Lincoln McCaw” mixed in with the sound of crunching snow under their
    feet. Turn left at the stone marked Victor Donnelly , a WWII veteran gone, but not
    forgotten by his wife and three sons with the epitaph, the acts of this life are the
    destiny of the next . Five more stones east and stop under the thirty-foot-tall black
    oak tree. And just how did they keep from digging into the ruts each time they
    opened a new grave nearby? Jay never had the nerve to ask that question. His mom
    would faint at the mere mention of grave digging.
    The large oak had provided welcome shade on the summer days when they"d
    made the trek. Now, the bare, lifeless branches taunted Jay, reminding him why
    they had come.
    The choice of cemetery hadn"t been a decision left to him. The Shaws granted
    him the uncomplicated ones like the shoes Katie should wear—and only after Emily
    had picked the dress, which left a single appropriate pair of shoes—and if he
    wanted his name as Jay or Jacob in the obituary. He"d gone with Jacob, though he"d
    regretted it later. Katie had never called him that. Only his mom did.
    The one decision he had spoken up on…the wedding ring. Her parents had
    wanted Katie buried with it. Jay had wanted it with him.
    Standing in the cemetery one year later, he reached for the two simple gold
    bands—all he could afford at nineteen—hanging on a chain around his neck and
    slid them on and off the tip of his index finger, moving the bands as one.
    He"d taken his own ring off and put it on the chain with Katie"s the day they"d
    buried her. His mom had given him a look of