Free Secrets by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 4 Page A

wouldn’t want to look at my mom’s stuff with my dad. I know I’d start getting all worried about how he was feeling,” Rae said.
    “Did your dad… did it take him a long time to-” Mandy closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them. “To get back to normal?”
    Normal. Such a funny word.
    “I remember him being normal when I was a little kid, doing all the dad stuff,” Rae answered. “But really, I don’t know how well he was coping. He’s okay now, though, I think. Sad sometimes. But okay, too.”
    Mandy nodded. Her face looked tight, like she was struggling to keep her expression from cracking. “Okay, so, I guess we should get started,” she finally said. She started fiddling with her long, light brown hair but didn’t take one step. “Maybe you’ll find out what you wanted to know when we look in the boxes. You thought there was some group our mothers were in together, right?” Mandy asked.
    “Uh-huh. Some New Agey kind of thing. I hardly know anything about it,” Rae said. Except that some one in prison
    knew about it, Rae thought, a little shiver running through her as she remembered touching that fingerprint on the basketball the prisoners had been playing with. And that someone was disturbed-no, frightened-that Rae might have been born while her mother was in the group. “Did your mom ever mention it?”
    Mandy shook her head, then she started making a thin braid in a section of hair near her face.
    She’s getting scared, Rae thought. She’s going to back out.
    “How did your mother die?” Mandy suddenly blurted out.
    She’d rather do anything than face whatever is in those boxes, Rae thought. Even ask questions about my mom.
    “She… the doctors weren’t really sure,” Raeanswered slowly. “It was like her body was somehow turning against itself, destroying itself. They couldn’t figure out what was happening or how to stop it before it was too late.”
    Mandy shuddered. “That sounds terrible,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She paused, still carefully braiding her hair. “With my mom it was even faster,” she said, her voice shaky. “She was on the way back from the store, and these guys, these guys jerked her out of the car at a red light and shot her. Then they stole the car.” Mandy blinked rapidly. “She would have given them the car. I know she would have.”
    “Bastards,” Yana muttered.
    “Yeah,” Mandy said. “And we got the car back, anyway. They killed her for a car, and the cops ended up getting it back from them. It’s out in the garage under this sheet. It’s like a ghost. I don’t even go out there unless I have to.”
    She undid the braid seconds after it was finished, pulling at it so hard, Rae was afraid she was going to rip the hair right out of her head.
    “Come on. The stuff’s in my sister’s room.” She turned on her heel and led them down the hall, past the living room, past the kitchen. She stopped in front of a closed door. “My sister hates it if I go in without asking.”
    “Is she here?” Rae asked, surprised. The househad an almost empty feel. She’d assumed Mandy was the only one home.
    “No.” Mandy gave a nervous laugh. “So I guess it’s stupid to worry about it.” She slowly turned the doorknob, then pushed the door open so hard, it banged against the wall. “Don’t know my own strength,” Mandy mumbled as she led the way inside.
    God, it is like a shrine, Rae thought, taking in the little bouquets of dried flowers on the dresser and the dozens of photos of a woman who was probably around Rae’s dad’s age. Each photo had a little candle stationed next to it.
    The air held the fragrance of the candle wax and of recently burned incense.
    Rae’s heart constricted as she thought about what it would be like to lose her father. She’d never known her mother, but her dad… he was like air, a constant, essential thing in her life, even if she didn’t think about him that way most of the time.
    “The boxes are