Lily Dale: Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

He even went to the funeral. The next day, he asked Dad why Norma hadn’t paid her daily visit. Dad was forced to break the news all over again that she had died. Poppy sobbed inconsolably. And the next day, he woke up looking for her again.
    Poor Poppy. Now that Calla understands the profound shock and grief of losing the person closest to you, she can’t imagine having to wake up and relive it every single day for the rest of her life.
    “Dad, for what it’s worth, I’m glad I’m going to Lily Dale,” Calla feels obligated to assure him—or maybe both of them—yet again. “It’ll help me to feel closer to Mom.”
    “Calla . . .” He stops, as though he has no idea what he wants to say.
    “Dad, I need to see where Mom—”
    “Calla, she left home when she was your age and never went back. She didn’t even like to talk about it, so I don’t know how—”
    “Lily Dale was her life for eighteen years,” she cuts in. “Maybe she didn’t talk about it much, but she wasn’t big on reminiscing. You know that.”
    He nods. Of course he knows that. Mom was all about the here and now. She never wanted to look back, and she never wanted to look ahead.
    “Let’s just be,” she used to say. “I don’t like remember-whens or what-ifs, and I don’t like plans.”
    “Lily Dale used to be her home,” Calla tells her dad gently, noticing that he’s once again wearing the now-familiar expression he gets when he’s about to cry. “It was home to Mom the way Tampa is home to me.”
    Not that it feels like home anymore , she thinks glumly.
    Everything has changed. Mom’s gone, school’s out, Kevin’s no longer in her life. Even her friendship with Lisa is different. Calla can hardly pop in and out of her friend’s house the way she used to—not when she’d risk running into Kevin there. Lisa comes over to the Delaneys’ when Calla asks, but she can tell her friend is uncomfortable there now. Spooked, almost. Whenever she walks in the front door, she glances nervously at the spot at the foot of the stairs where Stephanie died.
    Calla herself goes out of her way to avoid it, which means getting out of the house whenever possible. It isn’t easy to escape her father’s watchful eye, but every time he’s otherwise occupied, she’s out of there.
    She’s spent a lot of time these past few weeks wandering aimlessly along the winding streets of her development, gazing longingly at the houses occupied by people whose lives haven’t been shattered. Every glimpse of strangers going about their daily business brings a pang: the retiree pruning her gardenias, the businessman checking his mailbox, the little girls practicing cartwheels on the grass.
    Shocking, to Calla, that the rest of the world is still carrying on as usual.
    She’ll be glad to get away from Tampa, even though she’s about to spend three weeks in a strange place with a virtual stranger who’s—well, not to be mean to Odelia, but she’s . . . strange .
    “Grandma!”
    “Darling!”
    Calla stops walking so that the girl behind her can rush past, straight into the arms of a little old lady waiting by the Arrivals gate. The woman has a white bun, glasses on a chain, and is wearing a double-knit pantsuit with sensible brown shoes.
    After allowing herself a wistful glance at them, Calla looks around for Odelia, who doesn’t have a white bun and wears her pink-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses high in her dyed-red curls when they’re not balanced on the tip of her nose.
    She wouldn’t be caught dead in double knit or sensible shoes. No, she’s more likely to wear . . .
    Birkenstocks and yellow capris.
    That’s exactly what she has on, and after spotting her, Calla debates—but only for a split second—fleeing before Odelia spots her.
    You can’t do that. It’s not like there’s anyplace else to go.
    Sure there is. You can hop a flight to Europe. Or some island where you can start over and nobody will know who you are or what happened to you.