Free Desert Crossing by Elise Broach Page A

was a strange sound, a muffled kind of choking coming from the hallway. But the stranger thing was, I recognized it. In some buried part of my brain, I knew what it was. I sat up and listened. Slowly, as quietly as I could, I pushed back the covers and slid my feet onto the floor. I padded to the door and put my face against the crack.
    Jamie was in the hallway. He was crouched against the wall, knees drawn up, head down, sitting in a long rectangle of moonlight. He was crying.
    I started to open the door and go to him the way he’d done for me a long time ago, after our dad left and I used to cry at night.
    Then I saw Beth.
    She slipped through her bedroom doorway into the hall, wearing a thin white nightgown covered in flowers. It swirled around her like a meadow when she knelt beside him. She put her arm around his shoulders.
    I heard her voice, soft and low, saying, “Jamie, what is it? What’s the matter?” And then, “Shhh. I know it was scary for you. It would have been for anybody. But it’s over now.”
    She kept talking to him. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face, and I couldn’t hear the rest. Then I saw Jamie lift his head, his cheeks wet. And I felt my stomach clutch because I knew what was about to happen. I knew it before they did.
    His hand reached up to touch her hair.
    Beth pulled away, and in the patch of light, I saw the stricken look on her face. “No,” she said.
    He took her hand and turned it over, slowly, so her palm cupped the moonlight. Then he brought it up to his mouth and kissed it.
    â€œJamie,” she said again. “I don’t understand. I thought you and Kit—I thought you were—”
    But it was too late. He was pulling her forward, holding on to her like he thought she might fall, or he might. Then he was kissing her, touching her face and kissing her.
    I stepped away from the door. I pushed it closed, noiselessly, and climbed back into bed.
    It wasn’t over.

15
    When I woke up in the morning, I thought I had dreamed it. It was too strange, what happened in the hallway. It had the feel of a dream, a weird dream, coming after that weird day. The night had been long and restless. I’d dreamed about the girl again, but this time when she rose up in front of the car she was wearing a white nightgown, and it billowed out like the sail of a ship.
    I untangled the sheets and blinked at the blaze of sky that filled the window. Beth was so much older than we were. Jamie was still a kid. I’d seen Jamie kiss girls before, up against the lockers at school, or leaning into somebody’s car. But I’d never seen him kiss anyone like that. It couldn’t have been real.
    I pulled on my jeans and tiptoed into the quiet hallway. It was late, but nobody seemed to be up. Beth’s door was closed. The door to the study was open a crack. I walked toward it thinking they’d be in there, Jamie and Kit, sleeping, just like Kit was yesterday. But I think I knew before I pushed it open: the only one there was Kit.
    I stood looking at him, lying on his back, breathing his deep, slow breaths. I wished—just for a minute, but fiercely—that he was the one in the bedroom with Beth and that Jamie was here, safe.
    Suddenly, I had to get out of the house. It was too much, the car accident, the dead girl, and now Jamie sleeping with a woman twenty years older than he was. It felt like we’d left Kansas and stepped into some upside-down world where there were no rules.
    I ran down the hallway, my feet skimming over the cool floor. The dogs heard me and came rushing out of the living room. When I yanked open the front door, they crowded behind me, whining and nuzzling my legs. We walked out into the desert light.
    *   *   *
    I didn’t hear Kit come up behind me. When he spoke, I jumped. How long had I been sitting on the porch steps? I scooted over, making room for him to pass, trying to pretend everything