Fragments of Light by Michele Phoenix

Author:Michele Phoenix [Phoenix, Michele]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780785232070
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Discomfort seemed to be coming off Tom in waves when I rejoined him and Darlene downstairs.

“Find anything?” she asked, expectant.

I held out the three framed photos and the yellow mirror and brush set I’d taken from Lucy’s vanity. The letter was in my jacket pocket. I’d show it to Darlene later, when we were alone and able to process it. “Pictures,” I said. “And a few of Cal’s mother’s—your grandmother’s—things.”

She seemed to hesitate before taking the frames from me. Her hands were shaking as she looked at each one.

“Are you sure it’s okay for us to take these?” I asked Tom.

He’d collapsed the ladder and was heading for the door. “This is your family’s house.” He tipped an imaginary cap and left.

Darlene and I sat in the car for a few minutes and looked at the pictures. She dusted each one with a Kleenex and stared as if they might hold the information she needed—something to connect her to the heart of the man who had left her when she was still too young to remember him.

“You think this is Lucy and Cal Senior?” she asked.

“That’s what I assume. And your dad in her arms.”

“They look like a normal family, right?” The question sounded more like frustration than endearment. “Mom and dad and baby boy.”

She moved the picture of Cal and the kittens to the top of the stack. “And again,” she murmured. “The smile. The happy-go-lucky, farm-boy pose.” She glanced at me, then looked back at the picture again. “I thought I’d feel something—some sort of mystical connection if I stared at these long enough, but . . . How in the world did he go from this to . . . ?”

I could see her shoulders tensing, her eyes laser-sharp on the photos.

Reaching over the console, I lay a hand across hers and suggested, “How about we take a breather?”

“I don’t need to breathe.” There was something petulant in the way she said it. It didn’t sound like Darlene. It hadn’t been lost on me that her moods had been erratic for the past few days, starting shortly before we’d launched off on our trip. Given how tired I felt, I wasn’t surprised that the journey, along with the emotional weight of what we were trying to uncover, was taking a toll on her.

“Okay,” I said calmly, “but thinking about something different for a bit might do us both some good.”

She pulled her hand out from under mine and placed the picture of Cal in uniform on top of the stack in her lap.

“How about we put on that audiobook?” I suggested, wanting to give Darlene’s emotions a reprieve. “We can talk about all of this when we get to the motel. Are you okay with that?”

Her gaze didn’t waver from the photo of her father.

“Darlene?”

Still nothing.

I put the car in gear, entered our motel’s address in the GPS, and drove back down Mud Creek Road.

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