The Last Treasure by Anderson Janet S

Author:Anderson, Janet S.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

Shocks

She cried and cried. Ellsworth had never heard anybody cry like that. He knew he should do something, but he didn’t know what. The only thing he could think of was to go get somebody, but how could he just leave? Finally, just when he was desperate enough to do it anyway, Jess’s sobs began to slow. A few minutes later they’d dwindled to choked sighs and then to sniffles, and then she dug a Kleenex out of her pocket and blew her nose long and hard. Then she keeled over flat on her back and sighed.

“I feel better.”

“You do?” said Ellsworth. She looked terrible. Cautiously he reached out a hand, snagged the journal, and slid it back into the box. No way she was reading any more of that. Not today.

“Yeah,” she said, and sat back up. “Because, I don’t know . . . Because it wasn’t me.” Her eyes teared up again. “I mean, that sounds terrible. But that’s what hit me. Those kids, they . . . they burned to death. . . . And the house burned, too, right down. And us, we were able to save a lot of stuff, and none of us even got hurt. So I feel terrible for them, but, then, I feel better, too. You know?”

“I’m not sure,” said Ellsworth. But he did. Because he’d been thinking, too, while she was reading. He couldn’t help it. Because it was Thomas that started the fire, and it was Ellsworth who tried to save him, and he was glad it wasn’t the other way around. And another thing. His own brother? His own brother, Thomas, who couldn’t seem to get born after Ellsworth was, and so their mother died? He’d never said it before, even to himself. But he was glad it was that way, that way instead of . . . him. That it wasn’t him who made her . . .

“I miss my mom,” Jess said suddenly. “Because that was another reason I was crying? I miss her. I mean, we fight a lot, and I don’t get why she married this guy; he’s so phony . . . But . . . she’s okay. She calls me every week, she says she misses me, too. The thing is, see, I know she’d never dump me. She’d never just . . . leave. That’s what I can’t get about my dad. When I was little? We did all this stuff together. I thought, well, you know . . . I thought he . . . loved me.”

This was almost worse than crying. Then he didn’t know what to do. Now he didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe he just feels . . . Listen. I just thought. My dad, you know? My grandmother, she just died? And he wouldn’t come back. For her funeral, even though they all wanted him to. It was like he couldn’t. It was just too much, because of all

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