Free Days Like This by Laurie Breton Page A

play
together.  He’s an amazing guitarist.”
    “I’ve heard him play.”
    “Really?  Where?”
    “MTV.  And Mom had record
albums.  I don’t live under a rock.”
    Casey looked to Rob for help, but
he glanced at her and shrugged, his shoulders clearly conveying his message:  Don’t
look at me.  I don’t know thing one about teenagers.
    When she checked the back seat
again, Paige had put on her headphones.  With Leroy curled up beside her, his
head on her lap, she was pointedly ignoring them.  Casey looked at Rob.  He
glanced in the rearview mirror, picked up the manila envelope he’d tucked
beside his seat, and handed it to her.
    The envelope contained a
notarized copy of Sandy’s will and other legal paperwork detailing custody
arrangements.  It also held an official copy of Paige’s birth certificate, her
school records, her medical records, her baptismal certificate.  Casey skimmed
them.  All the girl’s immunizations were up to date.  She’d had chicken pox at
age four, and impetigo at age seven.  Her tonsils had been removed when she was
nine.  She was a solid B student, had been a member of the school chorus in
middle school, and would be entering tenth grade when classes resumed in September. 
“Wow,” Casey said quietly.  “Atkinson was thorough.”
    “If you dig deep enough,” he
said, “you’ll even find Sandy’s family medical history.”
    “I’m impressed.”
    “We’ll sit down and go over it
together when we have time.  It doesn’t have to be today.  I just wanted you to
get a quick look at it.”
    “We really did this, didn’t we,
Flash?”
    “We really did it, babydoll.”
    She stuffed everything back into
the envelope and closed it.  After a few minutes of silence, he took one eye
off the road, shuffled through the cassettes in the center console, chose the
one he wanted, and handed it to her.  She opened the case and popped the tape
into the stereo, and Gene Pitney began singing in his unique, pained vibrato
about a town without pity.  She hid a smile, secretly tickled by the fact that
her diehard rocker husband was a closet Gene Pitney aficionado. 
    Or maybe not so closeted,
considering that lately, he’d been bringing Gene to the regular weekend
get-togethers at her brother Bill’s house.  Most of the adults there, who were
all old enough to remember Pitney’s angst-y ballads from the dusty reaches of
childhood, found his choice of music perfectly acceptable.  Most of the kids,
on the other hand, were reduced to eye rolling and occasional emergency trips
to town so they could wash away the taste of Pitney with some speaker-blowing
Guns n’ Roses.
    From the back seat, there was
absolute silence.  Casey glanced over at her husband, and he shot her a wink. 
She smiled, leaned back into soft leather upholstery, and they listened to oldies
the rest of the way home.
     

Paige
     
    Sunlight spilled through the
gauzy curtain fluttering in the breeze from the open window.  At first, she
didn’t know where she was.  Confused, she blinked at the brightness, looked
around the room, saw the boxes piled in the corner.  And remembered.  The pain
hit her hard, low in the stomach.  Her mom was gone, life as she’d known it was
over, and she’d been shipped off to live with strangers in this old house at
the end of the earth.
    She reached out for Leroy.  When
she didn’t find him, she rolled onto one hip and looked down the length of the
bed.  She was alone.  Panic clutched her insides.  Paige rolled out of bed and
walked to the window.  Outside, on the back lawn, her father’s wife was on her
knees, weeding the garden.  Leroy lay nearby, basking in the sunshine, his
leash hitched to a wooden stake that had been driven into the ground.
    The panic receded, but her
stomach still hurt.  She threw on jeans and a tee shirt and padded barefoot to
the kitchen.  The refrigerator didn’t offer anything exotic or exciting.  She settled
for a bowl of