Free Home Free by Sharon Jennings Page A

smiled at me. “You’re an idiot! I just meant we’re a good team. We should do this again – you write another play, and we’ll put it on. Okay?”
    â€œIt’ll be like Anne Shirley’s story club. She and her friends …” I trailed off when I saw Cassandra Jovanovich’s look. I made myself stop smiling. I made myself look stern. “Okay,” I said. But on the inside I was jumping for joy.
    I told my father all about the play at suppertime.
    â€œIt’s too bad I missed it,” he said.
    Sniff
. “You didn’t miss much,” my mother said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I said. “We were wonderful. Everybody clapped.”
    â€œDon’t talk back, Lee. And don’t be silly.”
    â€œI’m not silly. You’re silly!”
    â€œGo to your room.”
    And I jumped up so hard my chair fell over behind me. I grabbed it and shoved it and I felt something crack open inside me and I screamed. I ran to my room and slammed the door and kicked it and kicked it over and over.
    Nobody came after me. I could hear my parents fightingin the kitchen. They yelled and said bad words and I could hear they were fighting about me and about lots of things all jumbled up together. Then I heard my mother go out and start the car and drive away. And I heard my father go downstairs to the basement.
    I waited until it was dark and when I still didn’t hear anything I opened my door and tiptoed down the hall. I snuck outside and hurried across the yard and into my Sanctuary.
    I didn’t want to be in the house. I wanted to be outside breathing in the night air. Night air never suffocates you. It’s always fresh and smells like … it smells like life.
    I stared at the stars and remembered the ugly duckling.

Chapter 18
    I think this is the hardest part of my story. I thought about not writing it, about embellishing around it, but everybody knows anyway, so leaving it out would be stupid. Miss Gowdy says it’s best to be straightforward when you have something difficult to say, so here goes.
    I fell asleep outside in my Sanctuary and Cassandra Jovanovich found me in the middle of the night. She woke me up and then she told me.
    I could tell she’d been crying. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
    â€œOh Leanna. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    And I was scared. “What? What happened? Did she hit you?”
    Cassandra just shook her head. Then she grabbed for my hand. “You have to come. You have to come inside. Your mother –“
    My mother? Was that it? My mother was mad at me? I suddenly realized how late it must be. I looked up and saw the moon had passed right over my sky window.
    â€œI’m in trouble, aren’t I?” I sat up.
    Cassandra shook her head. “Leanna. It’s your dad. It … he’s … I’m so sorry. Your dad is … he died. And your mother found him and couldn’t find you and phoned us and Doris woke me up and I knew where you were, or I thought I did, so I came out here and … and …”
    My father was dead.
    There.
    Sometimes in books people say time stood still and I thought I knew what they meant, but I didn’t back then. Now I do. It was as if the world stopped. As if everything was frozen and silent. Just one split second. And now everything was different. It was like someone had broken apart a block of ice. One half was before and one half was after and in between was this silent frozen air. Just for a second. Then it was gone.
    If I have to write about this, then I want to be very honest about what I felt. I didn’t cry. I could embellish this part and tell you I cried hysterically and beat my breast, but Ididn’t. I don’t want to lie about my father’s death. I believed Cassandra, but I didn’t cry. What I felt was sick. This was my fault. I yelled at my parents. I made fun of my mother. I said I wanted to be an