The Siege Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kleenex tissues, and handed it to her. Taking several, she rubbed her eyes vigorously and blew her nose. Her shoulders still shook with deeply repressed sobs, but she made a bold effort to pull herself together.
    “It’s just not… not fair!” she said, her breath catching like a fish hook in her throat. “It’s… not. Larry was… was so…”
    “I know, babe, I know,” Dale said, still leaning close and stroking the back of her head.
    When she was four and her mother had died, Angie was too young, really, to register the true depth of her loss. It had seemed like one day her mother just stopped being around, and after a long while she got used to it. Mommy had “gone away from us—gone back to God,” her father had told her. Figuring she was too young, Dale hadn’t let her go to the funeral or anything, so she had never really experienced a deep, personal loss before.
    “Why doesn’t stuff like this happen to… to other people?” she sobbed. “Larry never hurt anyone.”
    Dale’s eyes were stinging, but he knew he had to be strong for Angie now, like he had been when Natalie died.
    “No one ever says life is fair, babe,” he whispered. “And I think that’s one thing, maybe the only thing, that separates kids from adults. You begin to realize that life never has been and never will be fair.”
    Angie looked at him with grief twisting like smoky clouds over her face and said, “We maybe realize it, but do we have to accept it?”
    Dale shook his head as he got up and went to the refrigerator. He took out the juice jug and poured each of them a tall glass of orange juice. He got a couple of ice cubes from the freezer and dropped them into Angie’s glass, the way she always liked it.
    He sat back down, and they drank silently together, each reassured by the nearness of the other. The only sound in the kitchen was Angie sniffing back her tears.
    “Well,” Dale said at last, once their juice was gone and neither of them had moved from the table.
    “Well, what?”
    “Nichols said the funeral would be Monday afternoon, up in Dyer,” Dale said. “I’ve got the week off so I can go up. I was thinking you could probably stay at Mary’s for a couple of days.”
    “I want to go, too,” Angie said.
    There was a willfulness in her voice that Dale had never heard before. He looked at her and saw the resolve in her eyes. She was biting down hard on her lower lip, turning it a bloodless pink. She looked so small and scared, Dale wanted to smother her in hugs.
    “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said solemnly. “I mean, funerals aren’t exactly the funnest things going, you know.”
    The resolve in her eyes got steelier, but then she let her gaze drift past her father and out the kitchen window to the arc of clear blue sky.
    “You know,” she said, almost dreamily, “I always thought funerals were such a waste of time. Like—you know—like they were just so the people still alive could get rid of guilt and stuff they were still feeling.”
    Dale smiled gently. “Well, I don’t expect the person who has died really cares one way or another.”
    “I never did, either,” Angie said. “But you know, with…” For an instant she paused, almost unable to say his name, but she braced herself and went on. “With Larry, though, I have this feeling that it’s… it’s different somehow. Like it’s important for me to go to his funeral so I can help keep his memory fresh in my mind.”
    Standing up quickly, Dale walked over to the sink and, leaning on the counter, looked out over the backyard. His mind was a confusion of half-thoughts and scattered memories, but the overriding thought was that the void, the black, bottomless void had opened up and swallowed another person he loved, just as someday it would slide open and pull him and Angie and everyone down. He knew he had to deal with it his way, and he also recognized that Angie was old enough to decide for herself how she would deal