Luanne Rice Read Online Free PDF

held her so lightly, not wanting to press against
her heart or lungs. Rose concentrated on breathing, getting oxygen. She stared
at Dr. Neill’s prosthetic arm, his hand—when he was young, he had had a hook,
and the town kids had called him Captain Hook. The mean nickname had stuck. Now
she looked down at her own hands. Her slightly clubbed fingertips were still
blue, but less so than they had been a few minutes earlier. She was breathing
better now and started to push herself up.
    “Why don’t
you stay there for another minute?” Dr. Neill suggested.
    “Thank you
for helping her,” Rose’s mother said.
    “No
problem. I’m glad I was here.”
    “You knew
what to do … .”
    He didn’t
reply. Rose glanced up and saw him looking at her mother—their eyes met for a
second, and she saw her mother blush. Maybe because she thought she’d said
something stupid. Of course he knew what to do; he’d known Rose all her life.
Rose stood up and saw tiny stars.
    “I’m better
now,” Rose said, ignoring the pricks of light.
    “Give it
another minute,” her mother said, but Rose shook her head vehemently.
    “I’m
fine—and we don’t need to go to
Boston today. We can wait till we’re supposed to.”
    “You missed
the bus?” her mother asked, ignoring Rose’s mention of Boston.
    Rose didn’t
even have to nod. Her mother knew her so well.
    “You could
have called me.”
    Closing her
eyes, Rose thought of Jessica. Her new friend didn’t know everything, hadn’t
watched Rose miss every tryout, every team meet, every soccer game. She didn’t
know that Rose got driven door-to-door—unlike the other kids, who were dropped
off at convenient intersections or waypoints.
    “You walked
the whole way here? From school?”
    “Yes,” Rose
said. Her breath was coming back. Dr. Neill had been standing right there, but
suddenly he backed away—as if he didn’t want to embarrass Rose further by
hearing her mother scold her. Rose looked up, but he had already turned his
back. “Mom,” she said.
    “ It’s okay, Rose.”
    “I can
still have my party, right?”
    “Rose’s
birthday,” Dr. Neill said. “That’s a red-letter day if ever there was one.”
    “Thank you,
Liam,” her mother murmured, with a funny, bright look in her eyes.
    “No
problem. Take care, Rose.”
    “You too,”
she said, and watched him go. White clouds moved across the blue summer sky,
and seagulls circled above the docks. When she looked down, she saw some
rainbow fish scales lying on the ground. Very carefully, she put them in her
pocket with the first stone she and Jessica had been kicking. He had called her
birthday “a red-letter day.”
    “A man of
few words,” her mother said, the way she made comments about people she didn’t
like much or didn’t understand.
    Rose’s
shoulder leaned firmly against the stone fisherman. While her mother stared
after the oceanographer, Rose lifted her head and looked straight up at the
statue’s face. He wore a sou’wester and held a lantern aloft, seeming to peer
out to sea. Engraved into the base were the names of all the town fishermen
lost at sea—this was their monument.
    The stone
fisherman looked over all the missing, no matter where they were now. He was
cut from granite, just like the blue rock cliffs above the town. Rose looked
down at her blue fingertips; what if she turned blue all over, cold as stone?
What would happen to her mother if she did?
    “It’s
nearly the end of the day,” her mother said. “I’ll close up early.”
    Rose
nodded. She watched as the oceanographer walked over to his office. He had a
few words with Jessica, who was standing on the steps. Then he went inside.
Rose’s stomach flipped as Jessica came toward her. Their friendship had just
changed; no matter what, once someone saw, everything was different.
    “Are you
okay?” Jessica asked.
    “I’m fine,”
Rose said. “It was no big deal.”
    “You looked
a little like a ghost—pure