The Forgotten Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

want it.”
    “I
want
to give it to you,” Hayden said. “I’m working now. I’ve saved this money. I saved it to give to you. Please, Jason. Just take it. It will make me feel so much better knowing that you took it, that you let me off the hook just a little bit.”
    Jason came around the chair and sat down. He waved away the envelope that Hayden still held in the air between them. He crossed his legs and studied his sister. She looked good. She looked cleaned up and straightened out. But Jason also knew that meant nothing when it came to Hayden and her drinking. How many times had she been through rehab? How many times had she quit only to start again with greater intensity?
    “Are you here alone?” Jason asked. “Where’s Sierra?”
    “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Hayden said.
    “What is it?” Jason asked. “What’s wrong?”
    Hayden brought the envelope back down to her lap. She stared at it for a moment, then looked back up at her brother.
    “I do need something,” she said. “A favor. And I know I don’t have a leg to stand on with either one of you. But this is different. It really is.”
    Jason looked over at Nora. Her eyes widened, her head noddedever so slightly.
Go on,
she was saying with the look.
Go on. She’s your sister.
    Jason looked back at Hayden. An image from their childhood flashed into his mind. It was involuntary. Hayden . . . a little brown-haired girl in a sandbox, holding a plastic bucket with one hand, the index finger of the other stuck into her mouth. She tottered, lost her balance, and fell back on her butt, spilling the sand. Before she could cry, Jason, a year older and bigger, was there, helping her up. Receiving praise from their parents for his act of brotherly protection.
    He had to help her. He
wanted
to help her.
    “What is it, Hayden?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell us all aboutit?”

Chapter Four
    Hayden still held the envelope clutched between her fingers. She looked at both of them.
    “The first thing I want to do,
need
to do really, is apologize to the two of you for my behavior the last time I was here.”
    Nora made a gesture with her hand like she was smoothing something across a flat surface. “There’s no need to do that.”
    “Actually, yes, there is. I was a bad sister, and I took advantage of your trust and hospitality. I just want you both to know I’m sorry for that.”
    Shortly after Jason and Nora moved back to Ednaville, Hayden had come to visit. She was drinking then, heavily drinking. She showed up at their door with her hair matted and her clothes dirty. She smelled like she hadn’t bathed in a week. Jason remembered similar times with Hayden when they were in high school, and the tough love their parents eventually began to practice. Jason was still in that mode, because he initially was reluctant to let Hayden stay, but Nora convinced him. She said family was family, and they were obligated to let her in.
    For two days, all went well. Hayden didn’t drink in front of them. She showered and washed her clothes. On the third morning, Jason and Nora woke up to a police officer on their doorstep.Hayden had taken the keys to one of their cars during the night and, after drinking at Apollo’s, a local bar, drove it into a tree. The police arrested her, and later that day Jason and Nora found four hundred dollars missing from a drawer in their house. They never saw Hayden after that. She never called or wrote or came by.
    Everyone remained silent. Hayden looked at Jason as though she expected him to say something.
    “Are you apologizing as part of some twelve-step program?” Jason asked.
    “Jason,” Nora said.
    “That sounded harsh, Hayden, but I want to know,” Jason said. “You’ve apologized to me before, so I really want the reason behind this one. Is a shrink making you do it? A minister? It’s not Mom and Dad this time because they’re dead.”
    “It’s okay,” Hayden said. “I know why you feel that