Free Since She Went Away by David Bell

thought he was going to hit her. Jared tensed, took a step forward.
    But her father’s hand—fat and broad like a large cut of steak—stopped inches from her face. It brushed along her cheek and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her father spoke to her, the words lost to Jared, as he continued to stroke her hair. Tabitha’s eyes remained wide, but some of the tension drained from the rest of her face. The skin around her mouth relaxed, and the rising and falling of her shoulders as she breathed settled into a more natural rhythm.
    She nodded to something he said, her eyes staring up at him with nearly complete attention and devotion.
    Jared felt the jealousy twisting in his guts again, an irrational butpowerful surge he couldn’t stop. He needed to turn away, to let Tabitha be with her father without his spying on her.
    But he didn’t go. He watched as her father bent down at the table and placed a quick, gentle kiss on Tabitha’s lips. It wasn’t a long, lingering kiss. Their lips made just the barest of contact with each other’s. And when her father straightened up, keeping his hand resting on Tabitha’s shoulder, she wore a slight, uncertain smile, as though the kiss had reassured her of something she’d been doubting.
    But it seemed wrong to Jared. A violation.
    Those lips. He’d just been kissing them.
    Without thinking, he bent down, lowering his hands to the cold earth. He fumbled, his hands passing over brittle blades of grass and dirt. Then his hand closed around a rock, small and jagged like a throwing star.
    In one motion, he straightened up and threw it toward the window, hoping to stop the scene playing out before him.
    It made a short, sharp crunching sound as it passed through the windowpane. Both Tabitha and her father flinched as the rock bounced off the wall behind them. The look on her father’s face transformed. From doting love to defensive. He started toward the window.
    “Shit.” Jared turned and ran back out to the street, his legs pumping so fast they seemed about to lift him off the ground. He ran and ran, the cold air in his face, his heart pounding. The dog barked again, and then a voice called after him.
    “Hey!”
    But he didn’t break stride. He kept running and running, the increasing rain like a frozen river on his face.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
 
    “I wish the media could capture and really convey what good friends Celia and I were,” Jenna said. “Are.” They’d moved back into the living room, the snacks and the new bottle of wine on the coffee table before them. Jenna settled into an overstuffed chair while Sally sat on the couch. “We went through everything together. Everything over the last . . . Shit, we’ve known each other for twenty-seven years.”
    “Everyone needs a friend like that. Women especially.”
    “Do you have someone like that?” Jenna asked.
    “My friend Dee. She lives in Atlanta now, but we talk almost every day. And we go see each other.”
    “Exactly. Celia and I, we went through losing our virginity, prom, falling in love, and getting married. She was there during my divorce. She really encouraged me to go back to school after Marty left. She helped with watching Jared while I did it. If it wasn’t my mom, it was Celia. Always.”
    “And you kept it up all these years?”
    Jenna didn’t say anything for a moment. She ran one hand along the puffy contours of the armrest while the other held a full glass of wine. She felt Sally watching her, waiting for more. “It hasn’t beenquite the same the last few years. Not that we weren’t close, Celia and I, but we hadn’t spent as much time together. Her husband, Ian, his family runs the Walters Foundry.”
    “I know who they are.”
    “Ian’s been taking a bigger and bigger role at the company as his dad gets older. They’ve become part of a different social circle. I’ll be honest—I worried about her as a mother. Was she spending enough time at home? They spend more time at