Ties That Bind Read Online Free PDF

about how no son of hers was going to look like a common “native.”
    Now he smiled a lot. But there was bitterness and anger hidden within.
    “Remember when you and Amy had a thing?”
    “What?”
    “You know, weren’t you a couple?”
    “We were kids.”
    “Yeah, but you liked each other.”
    “Like I said, we were kids.”
    D-Ray stopped talking, tightened his lips, and pulled Sam’s plate toward him. He picked up the hamburger and took a huge bite. She knew this body language. He didn’t intend to say more, but this went deeper. Maybe he still felt something for her sister, who’d disappeared years ago—literally. Sam hadn’t heard from her in years. Her oldest sister, Susanna, wouldn’t discuss Amy, and their father acted like there had never been two girls named Callie and Amelia.
    Sometimes Sam wondered if she was imagining things. Or lived in an alternate universe.
    “Just for once, I’d like someone to tell me the truth,” she muttered.
    “You can’t handle the truth,” D-Ray shot back—between bites—in his very worst Jack Nicholson impression.
    Probably not.
    Sam hated being one of those women who had “something to prove.” But it didn’t change the fact that she was, indeed, one of those women. It also didn’t help that her blond hair was immaculate, complete with platinum and dark brown highlights touched up every six weeks, or that she never left the house without makeup, even to work out or just get the mail. Others thought she was vain and shallow. She knew she was using her appearance like ceremonial war paint—fighting off the demons.
    Today’s tragedy did not help her status.
    D-Ray ate and Sam watched.
    “Well, hello, Sammy,” trilled a familiar voice.
    Sam looked up, and her stomach lurched just a little. “Hello, Sister Miller,” she answered dutifully as the blue-haired maven of her old ward—and neighborhood—tottered up to the table. The familiar pangs of humiliation roiled through Sam’s already rebelling stomach. This woman knew all Sam’s family’s secrets. No skeleton in any Montgomery closet was hidden from Eliza Miller, whose husband had been ward bishop the year Sam’s family imploded.
    “Well, I swear you are just skin and bones! You need to put some meat on. Are you ill? How is that nice exciting job going? I hear you had a horrible case today, just horrible. Are you okay?” Sister Miller asked without pausing for breath, patting Sam’s hand with her dry, wrinkled one.
    Thankfully, Sam didn’t have time to answer.
    “Mom?” It was one of the Miller children—Carly or Karen or Christy; Sam could never keep them straight, especially now they were grown. “We really need to get you home so you can watch your show before bedtime.”
    “Bedtime,” Sister Miller said with a sigh. “The indignity. I used to tell her when it was bedtime.” She jabbed a bony finger at her daughter, who frowned, even while bouncing a baby on her hip. “Did you say hi to Sammy, Karen? You remember Sammy Montgomery. They lived just down the street from us. In fact, her parents still live in the same house.”
    “I remember,” Karen said. She didn’t say hello. She just glared for a moment, her face round and pudgy, her eyes tired, and wrinkles lining her face. She wore ill-fitting capris and a modest floral top, neither of which hid the “baby weight” she was undoubtedly still trying to get rid of. Her hair was slightly unkempt, not helped by the baby who kept yanking at it.
    Karen gave Sam another angry look, then turned on her heel and headed to the door, her mother left sighing and shuffling after her.
    I’m still the pariah, even after all these years.
    Sam supposed she couldn’t blame Karen for her disdain. In the back of Sam’s mind she had a vague memory of holding the vain childhood-Karen’s beloved curly brown locks over the toilet in the girls’ bathroom at the wardhouse and threatening to flush—all sparked by a comment about Sam’s unruly,