The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare Read Online Free PDF

perfume still hung in the air. Dancing with dust motes.
    I dropped my backpack on my oval rope rug and crossed the room to my workbench. I flipped the switch to one of Audrey’s glass insulator lamps and stared at a project I’d been working on for Craig, a kid in my Biology class. For a hundred bucks, I was supposed to modify his DVD player into a smartphone dock and wire it to stream internet movies to his TV.
    I didn’t ask which kinds of movies he’d be streaming. A hundred bucks was a hundred bucks.
    I cranked open the casement window next to my bench and got to work. The scent of burning leaves curled in and wrapped around my shoulders. The whir of distant leaf blowers and the rhythmic whoosh of cars passing by lulled me into a sort of hazy stupor while I worked. Every now and then leaves scuttled across the pavement in a gust of wind.
    I heard the front door open and close when Mom got home, but I kept my nose down. I didn’t even stop when the smell of lasagna baking in the oven made my stomach tumble and growl.
    I simply worked.
    And waited for the gavel.
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    MOM
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    It was dark outside and the crickets were chirruping by the time Mom climbed the steps to the attic. She carried a plate of lasagna and salad with both hands. Her long, pencil-straight chestnut hair was tied back at the base of her neck, but a few sleek strands had fallen out. They brushed her cheeks. Her glasses hung from a chain around her neck. The great shadow of disappointment stood behind her, hands in his pockets, head hung low, a little to the right.
    She slid the dinner plate in front of me, sort of like a peace offering, then sat on my bed and folded her bare feet under her long legs. The mattress coils squeaked. She frowned down at the quilt Gran made for me and traced the stitching with her slender fingers. The shadow traced it too.
    We sat in silence for a long while, the light from Audrey’s lamp casting a blue prism across Mom’s hair. We sat until steam no longer rose from my dinner.
    Finally Mom spoke. Her voice was thin. Tired. “I can’t help but wonder if you’re trying to punish me, Bean.”
    Her words were so unlike anything I expected that I swiveled around to face her full on. “What do you mean? Why would I want to punish you?” I sounded more like a child than I meant to.
    Her eyes remained fixed on the quilt. “For working so much. For not being here.” She swallowed. “For not finding a cure.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and in an instant I was at her side. I folded her in my arms. Her shoulders shuddered. I felt her warm tears slip down my neck.
    Is that what she thought? That I got in trouble to get her attention? That I resented her for slaving away day and night, searching for Audrey’s cure? How could she think I was that selfish? If I was the best cancer researcher at the AIDA Institute, I’d slave away too. Gran said it was Mom’s destiny, and I believed it. If anyone could find a cure for Audrey, it was Mom. And I would support her every step of the way. Even if that meant giving her up to her research.
    I thought she knew that.
    She pulled away to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. The blue prism swam in her eyes. “It’s just, you’ve been acting out so much lately. And getting suspended? That goes on your record.” She shook her head and sniffed. “It makes me wonder if I had been here for you – if you could’ve talked to me – you wouldn’t have taken your frustration out on your teacher.”
    I looked down at my feet. They were so heavy the floorboards groaned beneath them.
    It killed me that she thought it was her fault.
    The thing was, I had wanted to tell her about my visions for years, tell her they weren’t just daydreams, but I didn’t want her to think I was crazy.
    I didn’t want her to feel she had to find a cure for me too.
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    THE DIAGNOSIS
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    After