Second Hand Heart by Hyde Catherine Ryan

Author:Hyde, Catherine Ryan [Hyde, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2011-06-14T06:00:00+00:00

The Ride Home

Esther wasn’t feeling too good. I had to help her get dressed, which was kind of weird and embarrassing. Not that I minded. I mean, it’s just life. It just is. But I think she might have minded some.

And then when she was decent, I had to go get Victor, and he had to help her out to the car.

I think we might have had a plan to go see more of Manzanar in the morning before we left. We had talked about that, anyway. But it was so obviously out of the question that no one even brought it up again. We just headed for home, where she could rest.

We gave her the whole back seat, and Jax rode up front between Victor and me, which was a tight squeeze.

She fell back asleep almost right away.

I asked Victor if we could stop at a mailbox on our way through Independence. So I could mail my postcard, but I didn’t volunteer that part. I just wanted to mail the one. To Richard. I still hadn’t thought what I was going to say to my mother.

“Why, so you can send a postcard to that Richard guy?”

“Right.”

I knew he didn’t like it, but what was I supposed to do about it? I can’t be in charge of what he likes, and my life just is what it is, no matter what he feels about it. I can’t stop loving Richard just to make Victor feel better.

He stopped at a mailbox in front of the post office, but he didn’t say a word. I had to get out and walk around. For one awful minute I got it in my head that he might drive off without me. Esther was already asleep and wouldn’t be able to tell him to stop.

All my medications were in my overnight bag in the trunk, and I have to take them every day. For the rest of my life. I could literally have died if he drove off with them. Depending on how long it took me to get home, I guess.

But he didn’t do that, of course. It was just my brain playing tricks on me.

We drove north for about an hour, and the mountains were on our left now, so to look at them I had to look past Victor’s face. He kept looking back over at me, like maybe I was looking at him and not the mountains. And, I mean, he did that so many times that I started to wonder why he wasn’t getting it yet.

Finally I gave up and just closed my eyes and saw the mountains in my head instead.

Then something weird happened. Something very weird.

Jax sort of whimpered once, and then he jumped into the back seat with Esther. And he lay down with his head on her lap.

“Holy crap!” Victor said, and started looking for a place to pull over. But there wasn’t anywhere. “Oh, God, if she wakes up she’s going to have a fit. She’s going to kill me.

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