The Lost Bird Read Online Free PDF Page A

on reality. Finally she managed to inch the Bronco around the corner and alongside the curb. The tears were coming now, warm on her cheek, salty on her lips. She continued to grip the wheel, trying to still her shaking, to stop the earth from rumbling beneath her. John O’Malley dead! “No!” she cried. Her voice sounded strange and disconnected over the growl of the engine, the music pouring from the radio. “It can’t be!”
    Memories flooded over her, a strong current that bore her along. She had no will to resist. John O’Malley meeting her at the juvenile detention center to help some kid picked up for disturbing the peace or reckless driving; sitting across from her and discussing the best way to help some single mother keep her child; leading the prayers at a wake in Blue Sky Hall; striding across the grounds at St. Francis Mission, suddenly looking up as she stepped out of the Bronco. The familiar smile that broke across his face whenever his eyes fell on her.
    She had met him nearly four years ago—yesterday, it seemed. She’d opened her law office two weeks before. No matter what advice she gave, her first clients had looked away, stared out the window, or studied their boots and wondered out loud what Father John would say. She’d decided to drive over to St. Francis Mission to meet the man who had woven such a spell over her people.
    She’d arrived unannounced. The door to his office in the administration building stood open; he sat at a desk across the small room, head bent over a clutter of papers. At first she thought he was ignoring her. She rapped on the pebbly glass, a sound of impatience. He’d looked up instantly, then jackknifed to his feet. She was surprised at how tall he was—about six-feet-four, she guessed—but there was something graceful and well put together about him: broad shoulders that filled out the plaid shirt, whose sleeves were rolled up just below his elbows; muscular forearms sprinkled with freckles; large hands with long, slender fingers.
    He was younger than she had expected, somewhere in his early forties, and handsome in a way that suggested he was unaware of the fact. His hair was red,fading into blond, with a few gray specks at the temples. He had light blue eyes that seemed to take her in at first glance. She was used to men looking at her; she was aware of the appraisals, the sly smiles. But she felt as if John O’Malley had seen into the lonely, private place inside her.
    “You don’t know me,” she’d blurted, realizing it wasn’t quite true.
    “Come in.” His smile was open and welcoming.
    She had known as she walked across the office and extended her hand that they would be friends. His grip was warm and strong, and she had allowed her hand to stay in his a moment. Then he had stepped around the desk and, with one hand, swung a straight-backed chair close to the corner. He waited until she sat down before returning to his own chair. They had talked for the best part of an hour. At one point he’d stepped over to the coffeepot on a metal table near the door, filled two mugs, and handed her one. Then he’d sat down again, sipping at his coffee, listening as she babbled on. She had done most of the talking, she had realized even then, although she couldn’t remember now what she had talked about. Only that she could talk to this man, that he was listening.
    Now she realized that she had been drawn to him at that first meeting. Her feelings had been sudden and sure, like a thunderstorm rising over the mountains. Not, as she’d always thought, a gradual unfolding in the hours and days they had spent together helping people through divorces and deaths, even trying to prove a young man innocent of murdering his uncle and stopping the construction of a nuclear waste facility on the reservation. John O’Malley was the man she had turned to when she had to rescue Susan, hertwenty-one-year-old daughter, from drug dealers.
    Lawyer. Counselor. They made a good