Ghosts of the Missing by Kathleen Donohoe

Author:Kathleen Donohoe [Donohoe, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

ADAIR

December 1994

Rowan and I sat on our sleeping bags, which were spread out beneath the Christmas tree in the front parlor. The tree, a concolor fir, was so tall that the wings of its angel brushed the ceiling. The room’s only illumination were the tree’s clear, unblinking lights. The ornaments—red, silver, green bells and stars, spheres and spirals—swung gently in the draft seeping in around the windowpane. The curtain was left open to display the tree, a tradition meant to welcome lost travelers, though certainly there would be no one on the road by Moye House at close to midnight.

In the near-dark I could almost see a hand from another era rising to wind the ancient clock on the mantel, as ever two hours behind. No one living could fix it, not even my grandfather Darragh, who had often tried.

The sleepover was to mark my twelfth birthday. Michan had bought the sleeping bags especially (one of my gifts, I thought) because he had somehow realized it would be more fun for us to sleep beneath the Christmas tree. But then Rowan told me that it was the only way her stepfather would agree to let her stay over. My double bed was more than big enough for the both of us, and this was the problem. Twin beds or bunk beds might have been deemed fine. “I keep telling him there’s nothing wrong with you,” Rowan had said, disgusted. “There is,” I’d argued, but she shook her head.

I held the cards, a deck abandoned by a writer from years ago, who had sat at the dining room table long after breakfast was over, dealing himself hand after hand of solitaire. When he took off only halfway through his residency, he left the cards behind.

“Hit me,” Rowan said.

“King plus nine equals nineteen,” I said, exasperated. “You’ll go over.”

She grinned. “Hit me!”

I tossed down the jack of hearts. “See?”

Rowan laughed and sat back on her hands. “My mom once won money at blackjack in Las Vegas.”

“When did she go to Las Vegas?” I asked. Rowan, and sometimes Evelyn herself, revealed interesting fragments of Evelyn’s life, the years between high school and Rowan’s own birth. I pictured Evelyn as she must have been then, her smile not the polite work-smile but an expression she never used anymore.

Rowan shrugged. “Twenty? I forget. This woman told her she should stay and work in the casinos because she could make a fortune, even as a cocktail waitress. Mom said she thought about it for half a second, but it was so hot out there that raindrops would evaporate before they hit the ground.”

I nodded, a yawn pressing at the back of my throat. It was too early for bed, though. Sleepovers, I’d heard, went on until dawn. They were wild. I didn’t want to disappoint Rowan.

One day, home from school with a fever, I was sitting in Evelyn’s office as she worked, something Michan allowed because Evelyn said she didn’t mind. I sat on the loveseat by the window with a book.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.