Prayers of a Stranger by Davis Bunn

Author:Davis Bunn [Bunn, Davis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Book, ebook, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780849944888
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2012-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The journey home started in silence. Chris had no problem with not talking. The day resonated with a palpable force, and he needed time to digest not the events but the realizations. As they waited for the last light before entering the expressway, he tried phoning Amanda once more. When it went straight to her voice mail, he simply told her everything was fine and asked her to call.

“You and Amanda headed anywhere for Christmas this year?” Frank asked.

“We were supposed to. But we’ll probably stay put. How about you and Emily?”

“The kids and their families joined us last year. This Christmas they’ll be with in-laws. We didn’t plan it this way, but it works out for the best, since I’ll be able to recover from the surgery in peace. You have family up in Virginia, right?”

“A lot.” Chris merged into the highway flow. “To be honest, I don’t know if we’ll ever go back. Not after last year.”

Chris found himself talking easily about growing up as the youngest of five children, the closeness they felt for one another, the pain of dealing with their beloved mother’s Alzheimer’s and subsequent death. And the quarrel with his sister Claire.

He spoke for the first time of their arrival at his sister’s home on Christmas Eve. He had not said a word about it before then to anyone. He had in fact done his best to forget the events had ever happened.

Up to the day of their arrival at Claire’s home, Amanda had been briskly handling the loss of the baby. She had insisted upon going back to work. She wasn’t sleeping, neither of them were. But other than that and a new sternness she showed to the world, she seemed to be getting on with life. Until Christmas Eve when she had walked into Claire’s home.

The house was filled with family and noise and laughter. Children of all ages were everywhere, playing board games in front of the fire, fighting over controls to the television and the Xbox, inspecting the wrapped presents, reading a book in the corner, helping in the kitchen. The lights on the tree and framing the living room entryway had cast Amanda’s features in a sickly pallor. Then suddenly she had started wailing. Great, heaving sobs that sent her crashing to the floor. Several of the children started crying with real fear.

Chris picked his wife up and carried her to the bedroom. When her weeping continued without pause, Claire’s dentist husband had finally given her a sedative. Even with that she had needed over an hour to calm down. In the middle of the night, she woke up and declared they had to leave while everyone still slept. Chris recounted that awful drive, eleven hours seated beside a woman whose face had been transformed by raw pain. He had never felt so helpless in his life. Amanda had spent a week moving around their home like a zombie, not leaving, not even going out into the backyard.

“I remember,” Frank said.

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