Free Beyond Repair by Lois Peterson Page A

don’t want French toast really,” says Leah. “You make it all sloppy.”
    â€œQuit jabbering on about it, would you!” I say. Can it be possible that she’s a bigger pest now than ever?
    â€œI want Mommy,” she whines. She struggles out of the snowsuit and drops it in a pink puddle by her chair.
    â€œStuff it, will you.” I set out a box of cereal and a jug of milk in front of my whiny sister.
    â€œYou’re mean,” she wails. “You’re the worstest brother in the world.”
    â€œIt’s worst . Not worstest . Eat your breakfast.” I go into the living room and pull back the curtains.
    Outside, Mom is standing on the driveway. There’s some snow on the ground, but hardly enough to stop traffic—or to need clearing yet.
    She’s yelling at a man who is leaning on a shovel. She’s probably mad because the shovel is making a great gouge in her daffodil bed. As she waves her arms, her purse swings to and fro. When it hits the man’s leg, he moves aside. Then he leans toward Mom, talking right into her face.
    He holds up one hand. He’s keeping Mom back, or calming her down. I can’t tell from here.
    I can only make out a bit of what she’s saying. “You have no business…!” she yells. “I’ll report you. If I catch you…”
    The man steps closer, as if he’s begging.
    Let him go , I think. They’re only flowers, for Pete’s sake .
    Mom turns her back on him and heads for the house. As she flings open the front door and rushes inside, a gust of cold air swirls into the room. The door slams behind her.
    Her face is very pale. Her eyelashes glisten with tears. She’s breathing hard.
    â€œWhat was that about?” I ask. “Who is that?
    She takes a deep breath in, then lets it shudder out of her as she stares through me. She opens her mouth, but no words come out. Tears wash down her face.
    She takes another ragged breath. “That…” She waves toward the front door and gulps. “That’s the man who killed your father.”
    I rush back to the window. “What? What do you mean?”
    All I see are exhaust fumes as a blue pickup disappears from sight—and a snow shovel sticking out of my mother’s favorite flower bed.

Chapter Two
    It takes me a while, but I finally manage to get Leah out of the house and dropped off at school.
    I’ve never seen Mom quite so riled. She was a savage mixture of mad and desperate as she stomped around the kitchen. I was glad to get out of there.
    â€œTalk about spooky,” says DJ when I tell him who showed up. “That guy must be some kind of creep.” He slaps his locker door shut and it flips open again. “He really said he was helping out? Just doing what your old man would be doing if he was still here?” He slams the locker shut again. It bounces back.
    â€œYou ever see Dad shovel a driveway?” I ask. Like DJ—or anyone—ever saw my father do anything that didn’t involve the financial pages of the newspaper or computer spreadsheets. I doubt he even knew how to use a shovel.
    â€œAnd we’d have run him off soon enough, wouldn’t we?” DJ grins and slams the locker door one more time. It finally closes.
    After a big snow last winter, DJ and I roamed the neighborhood offering to shovel people’s driveways. For free. He figured that if we didn’t ask for payment, people would be so grateful, they’d give us more than they would if we set a price.
    It worked.
    Most people gave us ten or fifteen bucks when I thought the job was worth five, maybe ten for very long driveways. One woman even gave us a fifty-dollar bill. She wouldn’t take any change. Later, on my way home, I shoved a twenty in her mailbox.
    I didn’t tell DJ though. He’d think I was soft.
    Even better than the hundred and eighty bucks I made that day was that, when I got home, wiped out