The Girl from Felony Bay Read Online Free PDF Page B

might help him work harder to find a way to wake up again. I didn’t care what Ruth or anybody said, and I didn’t care how much time had gone by. I was going to visit him every chance I got and let him hear my voice.
    â€œPlease, Ruth. I’m sure you’re going out sometime today. Just drop me off where I can catch the bus. Please.”
    Ruth took a deep breath, and I could tell that she was weakening. She scowled, but she picked up a dishrag and tossed it into the sink. “Fine. But don’t be expecting me to drive you all summer.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œYou ready to go right now? I don’t have time to waste.”
    â€œYes,” I said. I raced up the stairs, grabbed the book I had been reading to Daddy off my dresser, and hurried back down.
    Ruth snatched her keys off the hook by the door and jerked her head for me to follow. I told Rufus to stay, and I ran into the yard behind her.
    Ruth drove me to the bus stop on Johns Island and let me out, and twenty minutes later I was looking out the window of a city bus, watching the world become more and more suburban as we got closer to downtown Charleston. We went past the round Holiday Inn and over the bridge called the Old Connector, and after another block we came to a stop near the Medical University and the University Hospital.
    Charleston is an old city, full of big, old buildings, many from the eighteen hundreds and even the seventeen hundreds. The Medical University is pretty modern by comparison. The campus is full of tall structures with lots of glass. If you’re sick, it’s the kind of place you want to be.
    I got off the bus and walked toward the biggest and newest hospital building. It looked so shiny and bright that it just had to be full of hope and certain cures for its patients. At least that’s what I told myself.
    Daddy’s room was on the sixth floor, and I took the elevator up and then pushed the button beside the hallway door. The nurses were used to seeing me and buzzed me in. I waved to them and went straight to Daddy’s room.
    â€œGood morning,” I said when I walked in. I always held a magical hope that I might come in, greeting him like nothing was wrong, and he might just answer me right back. But he just lay there the way he always had, flat on his back, his face still and peaceful. He could have been sound asleep like any normal person except for the clear tube that went from a drip bag above his bed to an IV port on the back of one hand and another tube that carried food up his nose and from there down into his stomach.
    â€œOkay, lazybones,” I said, keeping my voice cheerful even though I never felt cheerful when I saw him like that. Seeing those tubes go into his body always reminded me that he was balanced right on the edge of being alive and being dead. “Let’s see. I’ve got a lot to tell you. School got out for the year yesterday. I had a great year and got straight As, ’cause I wanted to make you proud.”
    I really did get straight As, but I hadn’t told Daddy that I was no longer going to Miss Walker’s School for Girls. I also hadn’t told him that Reward Plantation had been sold or that Timmy had been sold or that I was living with Uncle Charlie and Ruth and pretty much hated every minute of it. Daddy had always raised me to tell the truth, but there was no way I could tell him the truth about my life. I was afraid that if I told him what it was really like, he might never want to wake up.
    I made up some happy stories about things I had done and places I had gone with old friends from Miss Walker’s, and when I couldn’t think of any more good lies to tell, I took out A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and went to my bookmark and started to read from where I had stopped the last time.
    From time to time, I would stop reading and look up at Daddy lying there so peacefully, and the picture in my brain would flash