Barefoot Girls - Kindle by Tara McTieran

Author:Tara McTieran
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

Hannah sat on the steps of the Barefooter house, soaking in the mild October sunshine and staring at the photo she had taken out of one of the photo albums of a tall dark-haired boy who was standing in the center of the four girlfriends, two girls on each side. They were all wearing bathing suits and they were standing barefoot on the boardwalk. The edge of a bright blue sail peeked into the picture and it looked like late summer, everyone’s tan too brown to be early summer.

Her mother, beautiful and leggy in a pink bikini, leaned her blond head against the boy’s bare chest. He was so tall, her head ended below his shoulders. Next to her, Zooey leaned in, her skinny legs twisted awkwardly, her smile hesitant. She still looked like her old bird nickname in the photo, spindly and strange and sexless, nothing like the glamorous woman she would become. Pam was on the boy’s other side, beaming up at him with utter worship and wearing a one-piece bathing suit with a high neck that only accentuated her chest rather than hiding it, as was its most likely intention. Amy was the only one not pressed into the group, standing a little apart and bent a little to scratch at her leg. She looked irritable and impatient, already stepping away from this forced pose of togetherness.

Was the boy her father, Michael? He was dark and tall, just like her. But his expression as unfamiliar – one of openness and amusement, of someone completely at ease. Even when her mother was sparkling away in a crowd of admirers she was never peaceful; instead, she was “on”, doing a little verbal soft-shoe routine. With the Barefooters and Hannah, she only relaxed halfway, a part of her guard remaining rigidly up. It was that ever-present guard that both separated Hannah from the mother and made her feel like her mother’s daughter, recognizing the wall that stood between her and others.

The plummeting feeling of dread that came in waves for the last few days, hit her in the chest again and then fell through her stomach. Her book, once a source of joy and elation, was now a pile of ashes in Pam’s fireplace, but nothing could be done about all the other copies in bookstores, ticking time bombs waiting on bedside tables. Even now, her mother or one of her aunts could be reading it. Too soon, Hannah’s cell would ring and her mother would have one last cold message for her. Or maybe she’d call after she’d been swimming upstream through a river of wine and the words would be wilder and more violent. Or maybe there wouldn’t be any communication at all. Would the Barefooters step in then? Or would they, too, turn away? But they loved her - they wouldn’t do that. Would they?

Then she heard it. Someone was honking a car horn across the lead. It sounded like her family’s code.

There it was again. Yes, it was the O’Brien code.

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