Grim Read Online Free PDF Page A

deserves it. Now I’m going for a drive.”
    He left her in the kitchen with the sparkling dishes and the neatly divided newspaper.
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    Megan knew that Matt watched her as she swung, kicking her legs out as far as they could go, wondering what would happen if she spun all the way around the metal bar above her and dropped her hands. Would she fly up to heaven, where Matt said her mommy might be?
    No. Because things fell down when they died, and that’s what Matt meant when he said that they would say good-bye soon. Her mommy, with her hair like a princess’s, would go into a shoe box, but nicer, and never come back.
    â€œMy mommy’s dead,” she said to herself, tasting the words and how strange they felt in her mouth. “My mommy’s dead.”
    She realized she was saying them too loud when Matt walked up and slowed her swinging. Made her stop. Came around to squat down in front of her.
    She liked Matt and how easy he smiled and the way his hair perched too high on his head. It made his face look big, but he had a nice face, so that was okay.
    â€œAre you all right, Meg?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou can tell me if you’re not.”
    Megan looked down at the dust on her white shoes. She wanted to say that she liked the pink shirt even if Katie didn’t. That she liked the way her mommy smelled in the morning, when she came in and turned on the light and kissed her full of giggles. That sometimes she went into her mommy’s bedroom just to hear her sleep, and then got into bed because they kept the house too cold, and that sometimes she got angry when her mommy hadn’t come home, and what would happen now? But she didn’t know if these were good things to say; if Matt would get sad about her talking about Mommy, because this morning she’d asked if they could have Mommy’s special chicken-and-tomato soup for lunch and Rebecca had almost cried.
    So instead, Megan said, “Who’s going to take me to piano?”
    Matt opened his mouth a little, and then closed it, and then said, “I’ll take you, Meg, if you want to go.”
    Megan looked at him and how careful his eyes were, like he thought they might hurt her if he let them, and she said, “I’m too sad to go,” because it sounded like something she should say.
    Matt nodded and got back up again, and then he pushed her on the swing. Megan wondered what would happen if she jumped. If she could go deep down and curl up there until her mommy came to find her.
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    The forest floor was packed hard as brick and just as cold, the sun sleeping somewhere behind the horizon. No leaves rotted on the ground, but no life grew in the branches, either — just smooth earth and columns of naked trees, each a splotchy black against air that hovered gray and glassy and a little damp, like early morning in the Rockies.
    Erika clutched her knees to her chest while Jeremiah stubbed out the fire. When she’d woken again, he’d told her that she was ready now, and she believed him. She felt rested, as if she’d just gotten up from the best sleep of her life.
    Tall. Medium build. These were the things easiest to notice about Jeremiah in that dying half-light. Erika watched him, trying to catch the details that faded with the coals. He had a thin, straight nose and eyes like hers. Shamrock eyes, her mother called them. Outside of her family, Erika didn’t know many people with eyes that green.
    He might’ve been thirty, but he’d let his dark hair grow long, to curl around his ears like the art students’ at the nearby college. His jacket looked expensive, and tailored well, but threadbare. His T-shirt underneath was washed thin, the lettering faded to a shadow she couldn’t read. Keys jingled on his belt loop as he moved. It reminded her of her ex-husband.
    Erika knew, from the way Jeremiah looked at her, that something had changed. He seemed calmer, happier even,