Free B000FC1MHI EBOK by Barbara Delinsky

whole lot of it was his fault. Just then, though, he couldn’t have cared less.
    “Where’s Ian now?” he asked. At three in the afternoon, the boy would normally be playing baseball, but this was June. The varsity season, like the school year, was done until fall.
    “Stewing. He mouthed off to the coach yesterday, so he’s warming the bench today.”
    “What bench?”
    “It’s a local league,” Sandi explained. “I needed him to be involved in something until summer school begins. He isn’t an easy kid.”
    “Seventeen’s tough.”
    “ I’ll say.”
    “I was thinking of him, not you.”
    “I was thinking of me,” she charged, “because you’re not around to deflect any of what’s going on. I didn’t have trouble being seventeen. I was busy with school, I had friends and dance class and soccer. I was excited about being a senior and excited about looking at colleges. Ian is none of those things.”
    “And you see no other kids like him?” Noah asked knowingly.
    “Of course, I do. That’s my job. But those are other kids. Ian’s mine. I take him personally.”
    Noah couldn’t argue with that. He had always felt Sandi was a good mother. “So when’ll he be home?”
    “Maybe four. Maybe five. He’s been somewhat unreliable lately.”
    “Have him call me when he gets there?”
    “When’s the funeral?”
    “Tuesday.” Noah would have rather it be sooner, but the medical examiner wanted Hutch for a while, and by the time Noah talked with the minister, three other funerals had already been lined up.
    “Should I fly him up?” Sandi asked.
    “Only if he wants to come.”
    “Noah.” She sighed. “That’s a cop-out. Do you want him there?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll tell him that. It may not hold much weight. Lately, defiance is his middle name.”
    Noah was suddenly weary. “Just tell him. If he doesn’t want to come, he won’t come. I can bury Hutch just fine without him.”
    There was a pause, then a guarded, “I could bring him, myself. Do you want me there?”
    “Why? You couldn’t stand Hutch.”
    “It wasn’t that. It was just that over time I was seeing in him all of the things I had to struggle with in you. But that takes us back to the talking thing. I didn’t know Hutch. How could I? He didn’t have much to say to me. He didn’t seem to have much to say to your mother either, but she was used to it, being a Mainer and all, and there’s a whole other issue. There were times when I was up there and I’d see a bunch of local guys on the dock, talking and laughing. I’d approach, and they’d go stone silent. So was it just that they hated outsiders? That’s what I always felt like when I was there. An outsider.”
    Again, Noah waited until the silence lasted long enough to suggest she was done. Then, quietly, he said, “This isn’t the time, Sandi. Just have Ian call me, okay?”
     
    Julia didn’t get a call from her father. She did get a call from her friend Charlotte, who had heard about the accident from her husband, who had heard about it through Monte. Charlotte wanted to know for herself that Julia was all right, and once she was satisfied, she begged Julia to let her send clothes from the store. Charlotte sold the finest of Italian imports. Julia’s lost bags had held several of her outfits. But those clothes seemed all wrong now.
    Unable to explain this to Charlotte, she must have come across as being disturbed, because, less than an hour later, Julia got a call from their mutual friend Jane. Jane taught psychology at City College and was, actually, just the person Julia wanted to speak to. She described the accident and told her about Kim Colella. By the time she hung up the phone, she had learned the rudiments about post-traumatic stress disorder and muteness.
    It wasn’t until even later, though, when she was accessing her email on Zoe’s computer, exchanging comforting notes with her lawyer friend Donna, when she received one from George.
    SORRY I