The Shade of the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

and spoken to Miranda about it.
    Miranda glowed. The last time Jon had seen her, he could hardly tell that she was
     pregnant. But now there was no mistaking it.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked her.
    “Fine,” she said. “I get a little tired at work sometimes, but otherwise I feel great.
     They even doubled my food allotment. I’m going to be the fattest person in White Birch.”
    “There’s not a lot of competition,” Jon said. “I saw Alex. He drove my bus in.”
    Miranda nodded. “He’s working seven days a week,” she said. “He says he’ll stop when
     the baby is born. I don’t know. I won’t be able to go back to work for a couple of
     months, so we won’t have my salary. It’s going to be hard getting by on just his and
     Mom’s pay.”
    “We’ll manage,” Mom said. “Look at us. My three children together, all grown, all
     beautiful. It’s almost four years since everything happened. And we’re still here,
     still together.”
    “Remember Crazy Shopping Day?” Miranda asked. She and Jon burst out laughing at the
     memory of their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Nesbitt, attacking some poor guy who’d tried
     to steal her shopping cart.
    Matt hadn’t been there for Crazy Shopping Day, but soon they were reminiscing about
     their lives. Jon had learned not to think about the past any more than he had to,
     but it was wonderful talking about Christmases and birthdays and even fights they’d
     had growing up. Mom told how pleased Matt had been when Jon was born and he had a
     little brother, and how angry Miranda had been since she was convinced she’d been
     promised a sister of her own.
    “What are you going to name the baby?” Jon asked Miranda. “Have you decided?”
    Miranda laughed. “It had better be a girl,” she said. “Alex and I keep fighting over
     boy names. If it’s a girl, it’s Liana. The ‘li’ is from Julie and the ‘ana’ from Briana.”
    Miranda hadn’t even known of Briana’s existence, Jon thought. Julie had told him about
     her, but when they began the long walk to Sexton, Jon had mentioned Bri to Miranda,
     only to have Miranda ask who he was talking about. Miranda and Alex had had a terrible
     fight after that, Miranda enraged that Alex never told her he had a sister who’d died.
    That was the first of their two terrible fights. There were squabbles after that,
     but they all squabbled. The trip was a nightmare. It would have been impossible to
     stay in good spirits through those long terrifying months. But the second fight Alex
     and Miranda had was something far beyond a squabble. No one could tell what the fight
     was about, but a day later Alex left. Miranda said he was going to Texas to see Carlos
     and tell him of Julie’s death. But Jon knew—they all knew—it was something more than
     that, something far deeper.
    Jon had actually been surprised when he learned Alex had returned to Miranda in White
     Birch. By that point Jon had slipped into Sexton. But he came for Alex and Miranda’s
     wedding, and now, in a matter of months, he’d be an uncle.
    As they sat down for lunch, Jon knew Mom was giving up supper for a couple of days
     so the table would be full. Even so, Jon noticed the food was nowhere near as good
     as what he was used to in Sexton. He felt like he was seeing things through Sarah’s
     eyes. The apartment Mom shared with Miranda and Alex seemed smaller than Jon remembered,
     and grimier. The only heat came from a coal stove in the kitchen. That’s where they
     ate, but when they were through and went back to the living room, Jon felt a dank
     cold.
    He also noticed that, at different moments, each one of them coughed. White Birch
     homes didn’t come with air purification systems.
    Jon had been to his family’s apartment maybe ten times. He tried to remember if he’d
     noticed the cold before, the dirty air, the just adequate food. Maybe he hadn’t cared
     because it was so much better than what they’d had in Pennsylvania,