So Far Away (9780316202466) by Moore Meg Mitchell

Author:Moore, Meg Mitchell [MOORE, MEG MITCHELL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780316202459
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2012-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

It was Mrs. Morgan who answered the door.

“Natalie!” she said. “You look like you’ve been through a war!” She peered around Natalie to the street. “Did your mom drop you off?”

Softly, apologetically, anticipating Mrs. Morgan’s pity before she actually witnessed it, Natalie said, “No. I walked.”

“Walked! That’s got to be four miles! What’d you do that for?” Mrs. Morgan was dressed, as always, in a perfectly matched Lululemon outfit, a lavender sweatshirt and a lavender tank just visible underneath. This costume was proof to Natalie that though she’d been away from this house for a long time some things remained exactly as they had been. That was comforting.

“Well, never mind why, come in,” said Mrs. Morgan. “But take your boots off right inside. And for heaven’s sake, look at your jeans! You’re a mess. Did you walk all the way from your house?”

“From downtown,” said Natalie. “Starbucks.”

“Good Lord, sweetie, no offense but that was kind of nutty of you, was it not?”

It was, Natalie acknowledged this. She nodded. In her defense, though, when considering the distance to Hannah’s house she hadn’t counted on the fact that as the day grew warmer some of the puddles that had frozen overnight would begin to melt into an angry gray slush. Crossing the 95 overpass, where she’d been splattered with that slush, she realized that she hadn’t thought through her route carefully enough, and there was a spot—no sidewalk—where she had to cross over the on-ramp to the highway. That experience had left her numb and trembling and now that she had reached her destination she could have fallen right into Mrs. Morgan’s arms, so relieved was she at having arrived, tattered but basically unharmed. She bent to unfasten her boots.

“Sit down, honey,” said Mrs. Morgan, shepherding her toward the lovely brown woven leather bench that stood near the front door. How many times had she and Hannah come in from school and tossed their backpacks on that very bench? How many times had Natalie’s mother gotten mad at them for getting the bench wet? This will never dry! she’d cried, pointing at the water spots. It’s completely ruined, you two. Oh, to have Mrs. Morgan mad at her again. To be in trouble in this lovely house, among all of these lovely things. And anyway the bench had always dried, was never ruined.

“Socks too, honey,” said Mrs. Morgan. “I’ll get you some slippers from the mudroom—we’ve got extras. If I’d seen how wet you were I would have sent you in that way, but I guess it’s too late for that now.”

“I guess so,” said Natalie. She rolled up her socks and stuffed them inside her boots, but Mrs. Morgan, watching her, made a clucking sound and said, “Give those to me, sweetie. I’ll wash them and Hannah can bring them back to you at school.”

For a minute, consumed with getting off her wet things, and with talking to Mrs. Morgan, and with looking around her to get a sense of what

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