Free After the Fire by Becky Citra Page B

thought and started to sketch the dock with the red canoe tied at the end. She was just finishing shading the weathered boards when Cody and Sharlene returned.
    â€œMail! Can you believe it?” said Sharlene. She handed Melissa an envelope. “I feel like a local. It’s from Jill. She sent it General Delivery. It’s to all of us. You can open it if you like. And I met Bonnie Hill from the guest ranch. She was picking up her mail. She’s coming over for iced tea in a few minutes.”
    Sharlene attracts people the way honey attracts bears, thought Melissa. Pretty soon she would be friends with the whole neighborhood. Sharlene disappeared inside the cabin with Cody, who had spilt pop all down his shirt and needed a clean one. Melissa examined the French stamps for a second and then slit open the envelope and took out a folded piece of paper.
    â€œWhat does she say?” Sharlene called through the open door.
    â€œMmmm…she’s having a great time. She’s been to the Louvre and she says I would love the art there. And she went up the Eiffel Tower but she didn’t walk. She took the elevator.” Melissa skimmed over the rest quickly. “The life jackets are in the shed, which we already know, and—”
    Melissa frowned. She read the next part twice.
    Melissa, don’t forget to check out the island. There’s a neat tree fort in the middle that my sons built. They used to play “Marooned on a Desert Island .”
    Sharlene came out carrying a tray of glasses and a jug of iced tea just as a brown pickup truck stopped beside the cabin. Cody trailed at her heels with his thumb in his mouth. Melissa folded the paper and put it back in the envelope. “You can read it yourself,” she said.
    Her mind whirled with confusion. Jill’s sons had built the tree house? So why had Alice said that it was her and Austin? There was no way Jill Templeton would lie . So it must have been Alice who had lied. Why?
    A short freckled woman wearing jeans and dusty cowboy boots stepped out of the truck, and Melissa pulled her thoughts away from the letter. Sharlene introduced Bonnie Hill, who admired Melissa’s drawing and let Cody show her the fish under the dock before everyone settled down in lawn chairs with glasses of iced tea.
    Melissa closed her eyes and listened while Sharlene asked Bonnie a million questions about running a guest ranch. No wonder everyone liked Sharlene. She’s really interested in people, thought Melissa almost grudgingly.
    But not us, she reminded herself. She remembered all those years when Sharlene was too busy with her boyfriends, and Melissa had struggled to look out for Cody. She shifted in her chair. The counselor had told her to focus on the times when Sharlene had tried to be a good mother. Melissa had dug into her memory and come up with the time when she was six and had the chicken pox and Sharlene had made special meals and played cards with her. It had been a perfect week and Melissa had actually been sorry when the doctor said she was well enough to go back to school. There were other scattered memories: Sharlene’s once-in-a-lifetime effort at baking lumpy green cupcakes that none of the kids would eat for a school St. Patrick’s Day party; Sharlene sitting in the front row of the gym at a Christmas concert, taking flash pictures and laughing too loudly. It was the drinking that had messed her mother up, the counselor had explained to Melissa. Her intentions had always been good.
    â€œMelissa?” said Sharlene, and Melissa realized that Bonnie was talking to her. “Pardon,” she said quickly, focusing on Bonnie’s smiling face.
    â€œYou seem like a very talented artist. I hope you’re going to put some of your drawings in the fair.”
    Had Sharlene prompted her to say that? Probably. Melissa’s pictures were private. Melissa shrugged. She ignored the frown on her mother’s face and stood up.