Little Mercies Read Online Free PDF Page A

recollections. Snapshots of half-formed memories that she tried to blink away.
    Through the rear window, she saw her father lifted roughly to his feet by a police officer. She could see that he was speaking earnestly to the officer, bobbing his head frantically toward the departing bus. She should holler out to the bus driver to stop. That she needed to get off. Instead, Jenny stayed silent, turned her head the other way, just like her father told her to when it came to the police, and hunkered down in her seat, last row, right side. She pulled her book bag onto her lap, leaned forward and pressed her cheek into the seat in front of her, now damp with her tears, and watched as the buildings, the houses, the streets of Benton sped past.

Chapter 5
    I awake with a start. The room is too bright, the light streaming across my face much too warm for six in the morning, even though it’s the middle of July and the hottest summer on record in more than a decade. “Adam,” I say, looking over at my husband who, jaw slack in sleep, is snoring. I used to, when I had time, in those brief moments when the children were asleep, when work could wait, watch my husband while he slept. The way his brown hair curled around his ears, the dark shadow that magically appeared on his chin during the night. The way, through the years, his face became fuller, more creased, like a love letter folded over and over and opened to be read and reread.
    “Adam,” I say, leaping from the bed. “It’s almost eight o’clock! Get up!” He pops up, eyes wide.
    “Jesus, I’ve got practice in a half an hour!” He is already heading toward the bathroom. “Did you set the alarm?”
    “I thought I set it!” I say, trying to recall.
    “Remember you’re dropping Avery off at the sitter’s and I’ll take Leah and Lucas with me to practice,” Adam says as my cell phone begins to ring. I grab it from my bedside table. Checking the display, I see an unfamiliar number and I ignore it.
    “Yeah, okay.” I scramble from the bed. The night before is a haze. All I remember is falling into bed exhausted. “I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. I can’t be late again.” But I’m talking to the closed bathroom door, my voice drowned out by the sound of the shower. I rush to the extra bathroom that the kids use and strip off the t-shirt that is still damp with last night’s heat. I step beneath the showerhead, letting the cold spray envelope my body. I don’t bother to wash my hair but run the bar of soap across my skin, scrubbing the salt of my sweat away. I rinse quickly, avoid looking at my stomach, still slack from giving birth eleven months earlier, and wrap a towel around myself and briefly mourn the loss of my once fit body, uninterrupted sleep, time alone with my husband and evenings out with my friends. “Leah, Lucas, it’s time to get up!” I holler as I make my way back to my bedroom.
    Adam is sitting on the bed, pulling on his socks. “The kids are up already. I sent them down to grab something to eat before we leave.”
    “Avery?” I ask, pulling on the first outfit I see in my closet as I step into a pair of sandals.
    “Leah changed her diaper and got her dressed. She’s in her crib. I’ll bring her down,” he says, rising from the bed and then hurrying from the room.
    “Thanks,” I say and run a hand through my cropped hair, once again glad that I keep it short. I finish dressing as my cell phone sitting in its charger on the bedside table begins to vibrate. “Damn,” I murmur, and check the display. It’s my mother. I meant to call her back last night, but between the baseball game and feeding and bathing the kids, I had forgotten. Again.
    I think of the morning after my father had died. My mother rose early, as she normally did, and moved quietly from the bedroom to the kitchen, trying not to awaken me and my brothers ensconced in our childhood bedrooms. She didn’t hear me as I followed behind her, silently observing. I