Free Miracle by Deborah Smith Page B

table. He enteredAmy’s bedroom. She clutched the door frame behind him, ignoring Maisie’s garbled pleas to come away.
    “Leave my stuff alone! I’ll pack it myself! Don’t touch my stuff!”
    Her father waved the revolver. “You got nothin’! It’s in my house—it belongs to
me
. I’ll show you what the real world’s like!”
    He pointed the steel-blue pistol at a wall covered in movie posters and fired. The crisp explosions deafened Amy; their sound waves pushed terror through her skin. Maisie screamed.
    When the revolver was empty Zack slung it into a corner and began clawing the wall with his fingers. Amy wailed in despair. “No, Pop!” She tried to get in front of him, like a mother hen protecting her chicks.
    He shoved her aside. “Take this trash with you!” He grabbed at the dog-eared movie posters she’d bought for a dollar each at flea markets, recreations of classic Three Stooges ads, Mae West, the old film comedies, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in
Bringing Up Baby
.
    Amy’s vision clouded with fury. He was violating her sanctuary, when she had asked only for a chance, for respect. She screamed at him until her throat ached, while he threw open her closet door and dumped clothes into the center of the room. Without thinking she grabbed a fly swatter from the window ledge. She brought it down on his shoulder.
    He made a bellowing sound of disbelief. Maisie shrieked from the doorway when he turned and swung one fist. It glanced off of Amy’s cheekbone, sending her sprawling across the bed. Shock obscured the pain as she stared up at her father. It was the last insult. Despite all his moods, he’d never hit her before. “I hate you! I’ve always hated you!”
    “I hate you, too! Get out of my house! Out!” Breathing heavily, he pushed her cheap stereo off its makeshift stand. Then he jerked the bedspread from under her and slung it to the floor. With one swipe of his arm he cleared her dresser onto the spread. The tiny television set bounced on the floor with an ominous cracking sound.
    Crying, Amy scrambled off the bed and hit him again with the fly swatter. The next thing she saw was his hand slapping forward with the dresser mirror poised like a Ping-Pong paddle. Then the mirror crashed upward on her chin, and she felt the sharp slice of glass. The mirror shattered and Amy’s jaw clicked together with a force that sent explosions of light through her vision.
    She staggered back and dimly heard Maisie screaming at Pop to stop before he killed her. “All right, all right,” he shouted, but there was a note of fear in it. “I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Then Maisie dragged him from the room, and the next sound Amy heard was the door slamming.
    Her legs collapsed and she sank to her knees on the floor. She stared at nothing for a few seconds, but when her head cleared she rose and numbly packed a knapsack with all it would hold. She took a towel from the bathroom, because blood was streaming down her neck. Her face throbbed all over. She sat on the windowsill and made herself breathe slowly until she stopped feeling sick to her stomach. Then she hitched the knapsack over her shoulders and climbed out the open window.

    Sebastien was cramming every bit of activity into his last two weeks at the hospital. At four A.M . he had wakened without an alarm and read medical journals in bed, with a percolator of coffee on the stark, black-lacquered nightstand and a dish of warm apple tarts on his lap.
    By five he was outside in nothing but his running shoes and blue jogging shorts, his long, purposeful strides taking him past the giant magnolias and perfect lawns of other townhouses, the most exclusive ones in surburan Atlanta. At 5:45 he stopped at the ivy-covered building that housed the complex’s spa-quality gym.
    There he allowed himself one reckless indulgence. He taped his hands, donned boxing gloves, and spent the next thirty minutes pummeling a weighted bag. It was dangerous to risk his