Free The Sound of Glass by Karen White Page A

mermaid’s tears. I think I still do. Maybe that’s why I like them so much—because they remind me of what it was like to be a child and believe in magic.”
    I had another memory, of my mother planting the lima bean I’d brought home from school. I told her that it was a magic bean that would grow to be huge and I could climb all the way up to the clouds on it. She hadn’t said anything as we’d planted it together, and I had watered it religiously, staking it with a Popsicle stick. But it had never gotten any bigger than a lima bean plant no matter how much care I gave it. In a fit of anger and frustration, I’d ripped it out by the roots and run to my mother, who’d comforted me with her arms around me and a gentle pat on the back. As the years passed, I began to understand that as a mother she’d just been trying to ease me into the reality of what life was, to help me understand that magic wasn’t real no matter how we wished differently.
    “It’s just broken glass, Loralee.”
    She tilted her head. “I know that, Merritt. But I think sometimes even adults—especially adults—need to believe in magic. Do you know the legend of the mermaid’s tears?”
    “No, and I really—”
    As if I hadn’t spoken, she continued. “The story goes way, way back, and is about a beautiful mermaid who fell in love with a sailor. To save his life she calmed a storm, which was forbidden. As herpunishment, she was banned to the bottom of the ocean, where she is to this day, crying her heart out for her lost love, and we’re reminded of her every time we find a bit of sea glass on the shore.”
    I wanted to tell her she was being ridiculous, that mermaids weren’t real. But the softness in her face, and what she’d said about us needing to believe in a little bit of magic, stopped me.
    I took a deep breath. “You can stay a week. That should be plenty of time for me to get to know Owen before you head back to Georgia.”
    “We’re not going back to Georgia. We were thinking that since you’re here, this might be a good place to settle down.” She smiled, but it was different somehow. Like she was holding two conversations and I could hear only one of them.
    “Why don’t you go back to Gulf Shores? I’m sure your mother would be happy to see you.”
    “Mama died when I was twenty. I’ve been on my own ever since. Robert and Owen are the only real family I’ve ever had. And now you.”
    She didn’t say it with self-pity, and I respected her for that. But it didn’t make me want to like her any better. She was still an over-made-up, underdressed, big-haired woman who’d snared herself a man nearly twice her age despite the fact that he had a daughter just five years younger than she was who didn’t approve. I couldn’t bring myself to care too much where she went next.
    Throwing my towels in the sink, I said, “I’ll mop this up in the morning—I’m too tired to deal with it right now. I’m going to bed—see you tomorrow.” I turned to go.
    “Good night, Merritt. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
    I stopped and turned around, then took another deep breath, wearier than I’d been when I’d come downstairs. “Let me guess—that’s something your mother used to say.”
    She gave me a wide grin. “Uh-huh. But I say it to Owen every night now, too. I guess you could say it’s sort of a family tradition.”
    I nodded, then headed toward the stairs, remembering how my mother had always said, “Sweet dreams,” before she closed my bedroom door, and how it had been a long, long time since I remembered how to dream.



chapter 5
    LORALEE
    T he smell of frying bacon filled the small kitchen, reminding Loralee of the tiny trailer she’d shared with her mother all those years ago. Loralee had never been allowed to go anywhere before she’d had a home-cooked breakfast, and it was something she’d continued to do for Owen. Her mama had always smelled like bacon grease from the diner