Winter's Tide Read Online Free PDF Page B

the orange-striped afghan that Grammy Verra had made over her. “I’m so tired. I feel like I have sandpaper in my eyes,” she said.
    â€œAre you hungry, honey?” Mom asked. “I have coffee cake.”
    â€œYes, I’m starving. Staying up all night makes you hungry,” Stephanie said.
    Mom started cutting more coffee cake while Norm brought Stephanie’s weekend bag back in.
    â€œSo what did you find out?” Mom asked Norm.
    â€œHe hasn’t regained consciousness yet. He broke several bones in his left arm, and I guess he also broke some ribs and one of those punctured his lung. They had to remove his spleen last night. And he has a lot of stitches in his head. They are concerned about nerve damage to his arm, in addition to the fractures. It sounds like Matt is lucky to be alive.”
    â€œDid you see him?” I asked Stephanie.
    She shook her head. “He was unconscious and was just getting out of surgery.” She pulled the afghan more tightly over her shoulder. “It was scary.”
    â€œI’m sure it was,” Mom said.
    â€œThey did a blood alcohol test on him,” Norm said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “He may have to go to court once he recovers. He could lose his license. We had to drive by the stone wall at the entrance to Vicki’s development. It was almost completely demolished by Matt’s car,” he added.
    â€œThey towed the Mustang away, but you should’ve seen it. It was completely smashed,” Stephanie said.
    â€œWow.”
    â€œYou think about him being in it when it hit,” Stephanie said.
    â€œWhat we have to think about right now is Matt getting better,” Mom said.
    She set out forks and plates with coffee cake, and all of us sat at the counter while Norm and Stephanie ate.
    â€œIt’s so scary,” Stephanie said again, taking a bite. I thought about how weird it all was, because we were surrounded with the aroma of cinnamon and the lights from our tree were twinkling gaily, yet she was right—it was scary.
    â€œYou don’t get along with Matt,” I said.
    Stephanie quickly looked at me with knitted eyebrows. Her expression said,
Don’t say that!
I wondered if she was secretly glad that something bad had happened to him. But there was no way she’d say anything like that in front of the ‘rents.
    â€œRegardless of how we may have felt about some of the things Matt’s done, he’s in trouble now, and we want to hope for the best for him,” Norm said.
    For a few minutes we didn’t talk; the only sounds were the dripping of the rain outside and the scraping of forks against plates. There was a charged atmosphere in the room, as if all of us were holding our breath, fearing that the world was a dangerous place and that random terrible things could happen to any of us any time.
    â€œWhy don’t you go upstairs and take a nap?” Norm said to Stephanie.
    â€œI will, but first I want to see what Diana’s dad gave her for Christmas,” Stephanie said, curling up on the couch again with the afghan. “I think I know what it is.”
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œI’m not telling. I’ll just see if I’m right,” she said.
    â€œShould I open it now?”
    â€œGo ahead,” said Mom.
    I picked up the package from under the tree. It was a little smaller than a shoebox and messily wrapped in brown paper for mailing, with my dad’s rushed handwriting on it. I ripped off the brown paper and saw a cell phone box. Inside, nestled with a small softcover manual and a bunch of other papers, was a shiny blacksmartphone. I looked for a note from Dad, but there wasn’t one.
    â€œThat’s what I thought it was!” Stephanie crowed. “I knew it! He probably got you a plan too.”
    â€œWow! Can you believe Dad did that?” I was so excited. He gave me a smartphone! Things really had changed. Now I could