Crossing Oceans Read Online Free PDF Page A

be happy about that?” The tendons in his hands protruded as he clutched the wicker arms of his chair.
    I kept waiting for him to continue. After the longest five minutes of my life, he started rocking again.
    “Well?”
    “Well what?” he snapped. “His father killed your mother.”
    I winced. His flaming anger hadn’t cooled an iota over the past six years. “That’s a little over the top. He wasn’t even her doctor.”
    His nostrils flared, his lips disappeared, and his breath became short, angry bursts. “She trusted him. He should have sent her to a specialist. He knew he screwed up. Knew it. All he had to do was admit it. Say he was sorry.” His words were clipped and an octave higher than he normally spoke.
    “Daddy—”
    “Did you do it just to spite me?”
    I’d mistakenly thought he was on the verge of tears, but fury, not sadness, was the ledge he teetered on. “What?”
    “Did you do it—”
    I bolted up, lava coursing through my arteries. “I heard you. Did I get pregnant, make my life a hundred times harder than it had to be, and bring a child into the world to raise alone just to spite you? Is that your question?”
    He expelled a loud breath, pushed himself out of the chair, and marched off down the dirt road. I watched him walk into the night until a cloud of billowy gray blanketed the moon. I could no longer see him. That was just fine, because I no longer wanted to.

Chapter Four
    The smell of frying bacon woke me. My head felt like a block of cement as I tried to lift it from the pillow. The bright morning sun speared through the wooden blinds straight into my eyes. I squinted, making everything around me appear cast in golden halos and veils of gauze.
    For the briefest moment, I was a child again. Eight years old, pigtailed and slight, with every dream for my life still a possibility. I rolled over and sat up, feeling pushed to hurry. If I missed the bus again, Mom was going to kill me.
    No, that wasn’t right. I rubbed the slumber from my eyes. The Polly Pocket backpack lying on my dresser belonged not to me, but to my own daughter.
    I sighed and trudged to the bathroom.
    Having showered and dressed, I made my way down the stairs, and my heart fluttered at what I saw. Still wearing her footed pajamas, Isabella sat at the kitchen table, a stub of tongue jutting from the corner of her mouth as she meticulously traced a picture with a fat blue crayon.
    When I entered the kitchen, she glanced up, then went back to work. Mama Peg finished pouring a cup of coffee before giving me her attention.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be giving up caffeine?” I asked.
    “It’s decaf .” She said it as though it were less appealing than a mug of sewer water. “Sorry to make the whole family suffer with me, but Hurricane Craig came through this morning.”
    The melodrama in her voice made me laugh. “You really shouldn’t talk that way about your father.”
    “Hardy-har-har.” She wrinkled her nose and took a sip of unleaded.
    I pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured myself a cup, adding a splash of half-and-half from the carton resting on the counter. Behind me, a chair leg scraped the floor.
    “Sit. Let me fix you a plate.”
    An empty cast-iron pan still lined with grease sat on the stove, along with a mound of bacon piled on a plate lined with paper towels. My stomach grumbled, and for the first time in weeks, I felt hunger instead of nausea.
    Taking a seat next to my daughter, I eyed the picture she was coloring—Cinderella dancing with her prince at the ball. Isabella outlined her gown in royal purple and his suit in navy. Her strokes were almost perfect; only rarely did a small mark venture outside the lines.
    “Bells, you sure are good at that.”
    Fighting a smile, she colored the glass slippers lemon yellow.
    I looked past her, through the window, at a small tree. Its branches dripped with dark green leaves and small, pale apples. I turned and smiled at Mama Peg. “Mom’s tree