When Light Breaks - By Patti Callahan Henry Page 0,1

crying had come through the bedroom wall of our family home to join my own spinning and twisting thoughts, and sleep was as elusive as the no-see-ums—the almost invisible biting bugs—I swatted at during a summer day.

I’d been able to hear Deirdre cry through the walls since I was nine years old, since Mama died. I don’t think she ever understood I could hear her, not even now that she was grown and had come home to escape another too lonely night apart from her husband, Bill, from whom she’d separated. Our family, the Larsons, had learned to hide such emotional displays—they were not for public show like the family portraits or the Waterford Lismore collection. Our feelings were as well hidden as the family silver during the War of Northern Aggression.

I extended my arms over my head, then leaned down to stretch my hamstrings in anticipation of running my usual three miles. A school of menhaden fluttered below the surface of the water like butterflies under silk fabric. The tide was low, yet rushing in from the ocean to cover the mud banks, to give shelter to the crabs scurrying in the morning dawn. The ebb and flow of my memories weren’t nearly as reliable as these tides. On some days I was flooded with remembering, and on others I was as empty as the marsh at extreme low tide. But that morning, like the flotsam that rises to the top of the waves and is flung onto the beach after a storm, a very particular day returned to me. The sun broke free from behind a low, flat cloud, and my heart opened to an old memory.

I was thirteen years old.

It had been almost four years since Mama—the angelic Margarite Larson—had died. She’d willingly stopped treatment for her cancer and had left us. She’d chosen death over family.

So I’d run away from home. I’d packed my purple suitcase, walked across the front lawn to the Sullivans’ house next door, then stood on the front porch. I set my bag down, knocked on the door with all the assurance a thirteen-year-old could muster on a blistering August afternoon, with sweat dripping down my forehead. Mrs. Sullivan answered the door and smiled at me. “Hey there, Ms. Kara. How are you this summer day?” Her smile lit up the entire front porch like a million fireflies.

I patted my suitcase, lifted my chin. “You’re my new family,” I said, and nodded for an exclamation point.

Mrs. Sullivan took me in her arms, wrapped me tight and allowed me to believe my proclamation with her pure acceptance. The sharp scent of paint thinner filled my nose, and I knew she’d been working on her oil paintings. She led me into the house, put up her paintbrushes, and cooked me a grilled-cheese sandwich dripping in butter. Then she brushed my hair and sang me a song about a bridge over troubled waters.

“Now, honey, tell me why you would want to run away from your beautiful home.”

I turned to her and shook my head. “It’s just terrible. Daddy has changed too much. His face is always hard and stern.” I scrunched my face up. “Like this.”

Mrs. Sullivan laughed, squeezed my cheeks.

“He talks all low and monotone. He doesn’t run through the rain with me anymore, or let me get extra sprinkles on my ice cream cone. He won’t let me wear shoes in the house or get sand in the cuff of my jeans or even bring home a starfish for my dresser—says they smell. I’ve been thinking that the real Daddy will come back—that he’s not really what everyone calls him, grumpy and moody—but four years seems long enough to wait for my real Daddy to come back. And he hasn’t. So—here I am.”

The kitchen screen door slammed and we both turned to her son, Jack, who came running through the doorway, sand flying out of the cuffs of his pants, shoes on his feet. “Hey, whatcha doing here?” he said to me as he threw his baseball cap on the kitchen table. I was stunned when no one yelled at him to put his hat in its proper place.

“I ran away,” I said, hit my palm on the table for emphasis.

“Oh, you did?” He looked at his mom, then blew a large Bazooka bubble. “Must’ve taken you a day or two to run this far.”

Mrs. Sullivan laughed, and it felt like a betrayal. I wanted to give a smart answer to Jack Sullivan