Kid Owner Read Online Free PDF

in her eyes kept me quiet. “Well, Jackson is coming home with me after practice. Can you pick me up?”
    â€œIf I can’t, Julian will. Jackson is welcome anytime. You know that.”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know what I know,” I mumbled. It was as much of a protest as I felt comfortable with.
    â€œYou don’t need to know,” she said. “Trust me.”
    Trust her? I trusted her about not needing to know my dad and now he was gone. Part of me wanted to scream, but I buried it and went to school in a daze. After practice, it was my mom who picked us up, and after a short swim, Jackson’s mom arrived to take him home.
    â€œYou’re welcome to join us for dinner,” my mom said to his mom.
    â€œYou’re too kind, but I made a tuna casserole that’s waiting for us,” replied Jackson’s mom.
    Before he left, Jackson pulled me aside. “You okay, Ry? You’re acting too quiet, even for you.”
    â€œYeah, sure,” I said. I don’t know why, but I still hadn’t told him about my dad.
    He gave me a doubtful look, then shrugged. “Okay.”
    I watched them pull away, then returned to the kitchen.Teresa had dinner all out on the table. My mom sat with a napkin in her lap, sipping iced tea and watching me closely. I wasn’t going to ask about the funeral. Something in me refused to make a fuss. It wasn’t until halfway through dinner when my mom cleared her throat to speak.
    â€œYou’re going to have to leave practice early tomorrow.”
    An alarm went off in my brain. “What? Mom, I can’t just leave practice early.”
    â€œI’ll talk to your coach, Coach Hubbard,” she said. “You don’t have a choice.”
    I dropped my fork and it clanged off my plate. Missing football practice wasn’t something you just did. “What do you mean? Why?”
    I watched her face turn red and then she scowled. “Am I not your mother?”
    â€œI can’t miss practice.”
    â€œFor this you can.”
    â€œFor what?” I wanted to know.
    My mother made a fist and brought it down the way a judge hammers his bench with a gavel. Everything shook. The silverware jingled and even Teresa froze with a pot in her hands at the kitchen sink. “If I knew for certain, I’d say it, Ryan, but I don’t know. Let’s just say that it has to do with your father and leave it at that, shall we?”
    The tone of her voice didn’t allow for anything other than total agreement.

11
    The next day, I endured the embarrassment of walking off the practice field an hour before the rest of my team. It was only after I showered and changed into the dress clothes my mother handed me outside the locker room that she was ready to talk.
    â€œWe’re going to your father’s office,” she said as her big white truck merged into the traffic out on the highway.
    â€œLike, where he worked?” I asked.
    â€œNot really,” she said. “It’s a family office.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I was totally confused, because how could a family need an office?
    â€œJust . . . you’ll see,” she said.
    â€œWhy are you so mad about it?”
    She shook her head. “It’s excessive, Ryan. Everything your father did was excessive. It doesn’t even make sense when thereare people, children, in the world who have nothing.”
    I thought that was strange. We had a lot, so did that not make sense? But I kept quiet because my mother was not to be questioned when she got like this, with the wild look in her eye and the tremble in her voice.
    We got off the highway close to downtown and pulled into the parking lot of a building that looked almost more like an old home than an office building, with its stone walls and slate pitched roof. We went in and up the stairs. Everything and everyone was quiet. We were ushered into an enormous conference room. We met a slew of