Lila Blue Read Online Free PDF

the bottoms of my jeans where the wave got me, we sat side
by side on the broad porch steps, dried our feet with faded bath towels, and
watched the fog's progress. It had already eaten the waves and the black rocks
where the waves crashed up. Gauzy fingers of fog were making their way across
the beach toward the sea wall below us, silent as smoke. Lila seemed in no
hurry to go indoors, so I pulled up my hood and huddled down in my coat,
waiting for old Dragon Breath to cover us. In a few minutes it did, misting our
faces with salty coolness.
    Lila sat breathing fog as though it
were sacred, and while I was reluctant to disturb her, I had to know. "Do
I have to go to church with you?" I asked.
    Lila came out of her fog and looked
at me. There were little beads of water lined up on her eyebrows and lashes.
"What church, Cassy?"
    "Sunday church." I shook
my head. "You called me Cassy."
    "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know
you like to be called Sandy. I've been thinking of you all these years as
Cassy. Forgive me."
    "Cassy?"
    "Yes, when you were two years
old, the first thing out of your mouth when I met you was, 'I'm Cassy. What's
your name?' You were very mature verbally."
    "I was here when I was
two?"
    "Not here. Idaho. Your parents
brought you to stay with your grandpa and me for a few weeks in Moscow, where
your dad grew up. It was idyllic. Your mother took such good care of you. She
dressed you in ruffled outfits with matching socks and put little pink bows in
your hair. Your daddy carried you around on his shoulders everywhere. We all
adored you."
    "Idaho," I said, suddenly
chilled to my bones. I hugged myself so hard I felt the sand dollar in my
pocket break into pieces. Its crumbling called up some fragile part of me that
was broken, and I cried and sobbed and hugged myself harder.
    Lila sat beside me, both of us
enveloped in salty Dragon Breath, until all the tears and sobbing were gone.
When it was over, Lila gave me her headscarf to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
I sat twisting the damp ends of the bandana in my hands for a long time,
waiting for Lila to say something, but she was silent.
    Finally I looked down at my toes,
which were pale and blue tinged from cold, and said, "She tore up my birth
certificate."
    "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so
sorry." She put her arm around me and hugged me close for a moment then
released me before I became uncomfortable with hugging.
    "I don't remember him."
    "Your mother didn't tell you
what happened?"
    "She told me he was a liar and
she wished she'd never met him. She said some other stuff, but she's a liar
too. That's all I know."
    Lila sighed. Then we both sighed.
    "I was afraid of that,
Sandy," she said. "You're here now. This is good. When you are ready,
I'll tell you everything I know. We have plenty of time."
    "Is he alive?" It was all
I really needed to know to begin with.
    "No, Cassandra. Your father is
dead. He died when you were four years old. There was an accident." That
seemed all she wanted to tell to begin with.
    We sat for several minutes letting
the fog deposit tiny drops of water all over us.
    "I broke my shell," I
said, reaching in my pocket to see what remained of it.
    "Show me."
    I pulled out three large pieces and
lots of smaller eggshell thin chips plus what looked like sand.
    "From sand, to sand,"
Lila said. She picked up one of the larger pieces and said, "Look at the
little chambers inside. If you slice the top off a sand dollar, there's a lovely
star pattern inside, underneath where the flower is on top. So complicated and
lovely and simple, all at the same time. Beautiful."
    "But it's broken," I
said. "The wave gave me a special gift and I broke it." I felt fresh
tears spring to my eyes, but I didn't let them out.
    "Oh, everything is perfect,
don't you see? Everything changes. We make ourselves miserable if we hang on to
what used to be."
    "I wanted to keep it," I
said. "I wanted to give it to my mother." I don't even know why I
said that, because the thought hadn't