Left Neglected by Genova Lisa

Author:Genova, Lisa [Genova, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2011-01-04T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Bob is driving us home. Home! Even riding in my mother’s two-door Volkswagen Bug, which I’ve never been in before, feels like home. I’m in a car again! There’s the Museum of Science! I’m on Route 93! I’m on the Mass Pike! There’s the Charles River! I greet the passing of each familiar landmark like I’ve just bumped into a dear old friend, and I feel that escalating excitement I get whenever I’m driving home from Logan after a long business trip. But today, multiply that excitement by ten. I’m almost there. I’m almost home!

Everything feels heightened. Even the afternoon light of the outdoor world feels exceptionally bright and gorgeous to my eyes, and I see now why photographers prefer natural light. Everything looks more vibrant, more three-dimensional, more alive than anything I’ve seen for a month under the flat, fluorescent indoor lighting of Baldwin. And it’s not just the bold beauty of the outside light that I’m taken with. The sunlight shining through the windshield feels deliciously warm on my face. Mmm. Fluorescent lighting doesn’t do that. There’s no comparison.

And the air at Baldwin was always stale and stagnant. I want to feel real air again, its fresh crispness (even if somewhat polluted with exhaust) and the movement of it. I “roll” the window down a crack. The chilly air whistles into the car through the slit and dances through my short hair. I draw it in through my nose, fill my lungs, and sigh pure bliss.

“Hey, it’s cold,” says Bob, zipping my window back up with the driver’s master control switch.

I stare out my closed window, but within seconds I can’t resist the urge to feel a wild breeze again. I press the button, but my window doesn’t budge. I press and press and press.

“Hey, my window’s stuck,” I say, whining and blaming, realizing that Bob must’ve clicked the lock button, deciding for everyone in the car that the windows will remain up. Now I know how the kids feel when I do it to them.

“Listen, before we get home, I want to talk about your mother,” says Bob, ignoring my complaint. “She’s going to stay with us for a while longer.”

“I know, she told me,” I say.

“Oh. Good,” he says.

“Nooo, not good. I do not want her to stay. We don’t need her. I’ll be fine,” I say.

He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s mulling this over. Or maybe he’s glad to finally have my very strong opinion on the matter (which he should’ve asked for long before now), and he agrees with me 100 percent. Maybe he’s smiling and nodding. But I have no idea what he’s doing or thinking. I’m too mesmerized by the scenery outside my window to redirect my attention to my left, so I don’t know what his silence means. He’s in the driver’s seat. He’s a voice in the car when he talks, and he’s an invisible chauffeur when he’s silent.

“Sarah, you can’t be home alone yet. It’s not safe.”

“I’m fine. I can handle it.

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