Family Law by Gin Phillips (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

Lucia thought, that would not be contained. Back in her own ponytail days, she had hated those uncontrollable bits—they’d had the look of sideburns.

“I feel guilty about this,” Rachel said, “but when I heard about Natalie Wood on the news, my first thought was finally! Finally, he can marry Stefanie Powers. I mean, I’m not actually glad his wife died. That would be terrible. But don’t you think there must be something between them, in real life, for them to seem so in love?”

Sometimes Lucia forgot Rachel’s age entirely. Other times it seemed like the girl still believed in Santa Claus.

“How can you fake it that well?” Rachel went on, lifting a throw pillow onto her lap, jamming her elbows into the cotton. “Do you ever wonder that? Why do we want to believe them? Why does acting even work? Why do I feel anything at all about Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner?”

And this was why Lucia liked to let the girl keep talking. Just when you thought she was blathering, she’d spin off in some interesting direction.

“A need for escape?” Lucia suggested, sinking onto the cushions.

“How did you know? With Evan? That he was the one?”

“Well,” said Lucia, and it was actually shocking that the question had never been asked. “It was a complicated beginning. I was nearly done with law school, and I was dating someone else. I didn’t want to start anything with Evan. But—soul mates.”

It was not a term that divorce lawyers tended to use.

Still. She thought of Perry Jones, tall and killer dimples, and he was a good guy, but as he talked—even as she talked—she’d felt herself, so often, floating away, a part of her distant and contemplating. When she’d met Evan, there was no part of herself floating. No part of her that he didn’t reach.

“So you knew right away?” the girl asked.

Lucia groaned silently. Yes, was the answer that came to her.

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” she said instead. “I felt like he was different right away. But I don’t think that you can know for sure, ‘Aha! This is the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.’ You’re sixteen—you really can’t know it at sixteen. And here’s a better answer—I think you can feel sure and still be wrong. Sometimes you think there’s a click, and really it’s just sex or neediness or a thousand other things. A lot of people get it wrong.”

“I know,” said Rachel.

Lucia heard the refrigerator door open and close, and Evan came into view briefly, Moxie at his heels. A moment later, he stepped through the kitchen doorway.

“It looks good,” he said, nodding at the cactus. He reached out and straightened a dining-room chair. “Geez, it’s a furnace in here, Lucia.”

“I know,” she said. “Come on, Rachel. Let’s move to the den. I can’t take it anymore.”

She held out an arm, waving Rachel toward the doorway, and she could see the wet marks on the back of the girl’s shirt as she stood. Those stray pieces of hair at her temples were damp.

Lucia was still looking at Rachel’s head when the window behind the futon shattered. The sweaty stray strands and the frizzing curls against the nape of her neck.

The pale curve of her neck.

The bite of glass against Lucia’s bare calves. Chunks of glass on the cushions, geometric.

A gunshot. The thought was so clear Lucia could almost see the words. It came to her after standing there for hours, and also it came to her before the shot was even fired.

She wrapped one arm around Rachel, shoving her down and landing next to her, her chin slamming against the girl’s shoulder hard enough to make her teeth ache. The second shot came then, a sharper, clearer crack with no glass involved. She didn’t see where it hit. She had a hand over Rachel’s head and she was trying to inch them both under the dining-room table, away from the window, and, God, her jaw ached.

Evan. He had been right there at the doorway to the kitchen, and now there was an empty space. She called his name as another bullet went into the doorframe. Shards of wood fell to the carpet.

Rachel moved underneath her, not making a sound other than breathing. They were pressed against the dining-room chairs, and when Lucia craned her neck, she could see something shining and black on the den floor. Evan’s shoe. His pants leg hitched up past his knee.

Another shot. A cactus hit the floor, dirt spilling, black. Moxie was barking madly from somewhere. Another shot—the fifth?—then silence. The sound of an engine outside?

Lucia lifted her head. Rachel was still partially underneath her.

“Evan?” she called again.

“I’m okay,” he said, and the shoe jerked out of her sightline. His face came into view, and he crawled toward them. “You?”

“Rachel?” Lucia asked, and the girl turned her head just enough that the curve of her cheek and ear were visible, along with one brown eye. Everything else was covered by hair.

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“You’re sure?” said Lucia.

“Yeah,” Rachel repeated, showing all of her face, pale but whole.

“I’ll call the police,” Evan said. “Keep away from the window.”

“Obviously I’ll keep away from the window,” Lucia said, getting to her knees, though she looked back at the window, considering trajectories.

“We’re going to crawl into the den,” she told Rachel. “Keep down until we’re out of view. Okay?”

They crawled. Moxie bounded into the room, her tongue lapping at every inch of skin she could reach. Lucia herded her forward, wanting to keep her away from the glass. When Lucia finally stood up, she had a long scratch from her wrist to her elbow, smooth and straight like someone had tried to dissect her. Evan was on the phone, his back to them, checking the lock on the carport door as if that mattered when someone could just climb through the front window. It’s 5285 Avalon, he was saying. Someone in a car shot through the front window of the house.

Rachel