Finding Miracles Read Online Free PDF

Mom and Dad couldn’t accept but ended up cashing because we needed the money. “I mean, I got thrown out once, and that was that.” I was trying for a joke, but the minute I said it, it didn’t sound funny at all.
    Mom was looking surprised. “Honey, you weren’t thrown out. It’s just someone couldn’t keep you—”
    “What’s the difference?” I guess the pain showed on my face. Mom put her arms around me while I struggled not to cry.
    “You see why,” I managed, “why it doesn’t help to talk about it? Why I just want to forget about it?”
    My parents didn’t look convinced, but they nodded.
    “What do you think?” Dad asked, like I was some fashion consultant. We were in the mudroom, waiting for Happy’s caravan to arrive from New York.
    “Truly awesome, Dad.”
    Dad took a second look in the mirror. He was wearing his nice chinos, the L.L. Bean shirt we’d all pitched in to get for him for Christmas, and a beige cashmere cardigan that still smelled of mothballs. A gift from Happy.
Davey,
the monogram read. A nickname Dad dislikes, to put it mildly.
    “I guess this is as good as it’s going to get.” Dad shook his head at his reflection. His hair was thinning in back, his face seemed more lined: he had that tired look middle-aged people always seem to have. “The truth is, you’ve got an old fart for a dad.”
    “Dad, you’re like forty-five. That’s young these days.” Of course, I didn’t for a moment believe it. Forty-five was old. By then, I better have stuff figured out. But could that ever be for me? My whole life lay on top of a mystery that, like Dad said, no one knew much about.
    Dad was now looking me over. “By the way, you’re the one who looks great.”
    It was the top, I swear. I’d gone shopping with Em for a present for Happy’s birthday, some token gift, because really, as a fifteen-year-old on a ten-dollar-a-week allowance, earning five bucks an hour for occasional babysitting, what can I buy a multi-millionairess? I ended up using the money on this top at Banana Republic. The minute I tried it on and saw the impressed look on Em’s face, I knew the top was perfect for me. The golden wheat color brought out my best feature, my eyes. Its snug fit actually
gave
me boobs and curved in toward the waist, announcing a figure!
    As for Happy’s gift, I ended up making her a homemade birthday card with a corny poem I found on a Web site about grandmothers. Relatives always act like stuff you make them is what they really wanted anyway. As I wrote out the poem inside the card, I actually got teary-eyed. Maybe it was suddenly realizing that Happy was my
only
grandparent. (Mom’s parents had both died in a car crash when she was in college.) I wanted—strike that: I needed all the family I could get.
    I guess it was a lame excuse: using the money for my grandmother’s birthday present on myself. But part of my motivation for buying that top was to please her. I wanted to look good. I wanted Happy to approve of me, to be proud that I was part of her family.

    Happy walked in the door, shaking herself out like a wet dog. “Brrr, it’s cold up here.”
    Oh no, I thought. Was she complaining already? I wanted everything to turn out perfect for her birthday with us. After Mom, I think I was the most invested in this visit.
    On either side of her, Uncle Stanley and Aunt Joan were like her personal valets, taking her coat, agreeing that it was freezing. It was a second or two before I realized that a third person had slipped in with them, a quiet, pale man, very formal in a suit and tie and kind of nervous, like a person who knew he didn’t quite belong. Mr. Eli Strong, he was sort of introduced. I say
sort of,
because just then the cousins burst in, loaded down with packages and shopping bags, hugging and kissing, lifting their eyebrows suggestively at Happy’s mystery guest, and then exploding into laughter.
    Poor Mr. Strong—I sure hoped he had a strong personality and