Catch a Falling Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

her mouth twisted in an ugly grimace.
    “Get the hell out of here,” she said, and shut the door in his face.
    • • •
    Richard’s legs had buckled and wouldn’t carry him to the car, so he sank unsteadily to the front step and hung onto the nearest porch rail with a trembling hand. The world seemed to swoop crazily around him, and he needed a drink in a way he had not needed a drink since he had finally, finally gotten sober.
    He heard the front door open behind him and he straightened up. He didn’t stand; he didn’t have the strength. He heard a light step on the porch; a floorboard creaked. Not Brianna, of course. She would be stomping. The other girl.
It’s about your mom.
A roommate?
    She sat down next to him on the front step. A dog, a squirrely looking little black mutt, followed her out and barked at him once. The blonde girl reached behind her to pat the dog and that made it go quiet. Then she sent it back inside.
    “You okay?” she asked Richard.
    He closed his eyes and said, “No, I am not goddamned okay.” He wrapped his hand more firmly around the porch rail.
    “Oh, sorry, I know. Sorry. Bad choice of words. Brianna — you’re her dad, right?”
    He nodded, not able to get any words to form, not looking at her. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want her to see him.
    “Brianna’s mom died a long time ago,” she said with all the brutality of youth, and he wanted to howl. Chrissy gone. Chrissy dead. No more chances to make it right with her. His chest tightened and he had trouble getting the next breath in.
    “You can leave me the hell alone,” he said, and covered his eyes with his free hand. Christ, he should never have come back.
    “Eight years ago,” the girl said, apparently not the kind who took direction well. “It was a car accident. It killed my dad, too. They were married. You probably didn’t know that, since you were asking for Chrissy Daniels. I was fourteen when they died. Brianna had just turned eighteen.”
    Eight years ago. Chrissy had been dead for
eight years
. Christ, it didn’t bear thinking about. How long had he been gone? Brianna had been a kid when he left. He hadn’t meant to be gone for so long —
    “And your mom?” he asked tentatively. Someone must have taken care of them. Someone must have —
    The girl wrapped her arms around her knees. “She died when I was seven.”
    He nodded again, feeling like a bobble-head doll on a dashboard. “So you … ” His throat worked and he made himself say it. If you wanted to pay for your sins, you had to be able to look at them, see what they were. “You went into foster care?”
    “No,” she said. “Brianna petitioned the court for custody, and got it.”
    Christ.
    “Well … good,” he said. “That’s … I guess that’s good.”
    What would have been better, dickhead, is if you’d been here.
    But she didn’t say that, even if she thought it. Brianna would have. Even when she was just a little kid, she called it like she saw it.
    “I don’t even know your name,” he said.
    She stuck out her hand. “I’m Natalie Johnson. And you’re?”
    He looked at her hand. He supposed he would have to shake. He did. She had a small hand, frail. A little blonde angel, or one of the fairy-folk, not quite of this world. “I’m Richard Daniels.”
    A smile quirked her lips. “She calls you Dick.”
    “Or
a
dick,” he guessed. “When she speaks of me at all, right?”
    Natalie shrugged. “We had some hard times. And Brianna’s not really a sentimental person.”
    Hey, Daddy, watch me make this quarter disappear! Hey, Daddy, you want to go to a movie this weekend? Hey, Daddy, do you think Santa will bring me a skateboard this Christmas?
    He brushed his hand over his eyes again. “She’s never been sentimental,” he said. “But Brianna has always been a good kid.”
    • • •
    Natalie was out there talking to the dickhead. Natalie the traitor. Brianna concentrated on wiping down the counter. The