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

leaned against the bookshelves. She skimmed a hand over the driftwood. She touched one fingertip to the milk-glass chicken.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Lucia asked, laying her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“I’m fine,” Rachel said. “I promise.”

“Nothing hurts? Nothing at all?” Because sometimes it happened, Lucia had heard, that shock set in and kept you from feeling injuries.

“Someone just shot at your house,” Rachel said, shifting under Lucia’s hands. “Someone just shot at your house.”

Lucia felt the hard knobs of the girl’s shoulder bones, the slight rise and fall of breath. “Yes,” she said. “But we’re all okay. It’s all fine.”

Fine. No one bleeding. No one dead. Standing here, the dog slobbering over their feet.

“Were they shooting at you?” said Rachel. “On purpose?”

Lucia smoothed Rachel’s hair back from her face. Her pupils looked slightly dilated. Lucia remembered how a woman on the battered women’s hotline had talked about having her ribs broken, saying she’d never even felt it. The woman had said it was like she’d lost her glasses, like everything around her went blurry, and even the paramedics’ questions seemed unreal. Lucia had wondered if maybe shock wasn’t the right explanation, if maybe the blur was a coping mechanism you developed when you had a husband who beat the crap out of you. Maybe you told yourself nothing was real.

If the woman had been right, though, it helped to assure Lucia that she herself was not in shock. Nothing was blurry. She could see so clearly. She thought about an old Spider-Man comic where Peter Parker suddenly realized his superpowers. She could see and hear more clearly than she ever had. The molding along the doorway had seven distinct edges. The tendrils of the carpet stood up in formations like coral. Evan had a small hole in his sleeve, no bigger than a pencil eraser. The pork chops he’d planned to grill were marinating by the sink, and orange juice had splashed over the side of the pie plate onto the counter.

Glass broke, quietly, in the sunroom. Probably a stray piece falling from the window.

“We need to get you home,” she told Rachel.

“Surely she’ll need to talk to the police,” Evan said. He’d hung up the phone and was walking toward them, headed past the doorway that led to the sunroom.

“Stay back,” said Lucia.

“They’re gone,” said Evan, although he sped up his steps.

“I don’t know why Rachel has to stay,” Lucia said. “She didn’t see anything.”

“Still.”

“Fine,” said Lucia, turning back to Rachel. “We need to call your mom. She should know what happened. You might be in shock, so you probably shouldn’t drive home. I could drop you off or she could pick you up. I’ll explain what happened.”

Rachel let out a long breath. “Don’t call her. You should not call her.”

“She’s your mother. I can’t not tell her—”

Rachel laid a hand on her arm, her grip tighter than Lucia would have expected.

“I’ll drive home, Lucia. I’ll tell her when I get there. It’ll be worse if you tell her over the phone. It’ll be worse if she comes by. Do you know what she’ll do if she sees that window blown out?”

“I have some idea.”

“I’ll be fine,” Rachel said.

“I should drive you home,” Lucia repeated.

“Then I’ll have to deal with coming back for my car,” Rachel said. “I’ll tell her when I get home, and she’ll see I’m safe, so she won’t be able to hallucinate any terrible things. I’ll tell her—I don’t know, but, Lucia, seriously—someone was shooting at you. Why are we talking about me?”

Every word came out clear and calm. Rachel did not seem to be in shock, either.

“Don’t worry about Lucia,” Evan said, stepping closer to them. “She comes from strong stock. Did she ever tell you about her grandmother?”

“Her grandmother?” said Rachel.

“She got her dress caught in the tractor she was driving,” he said. A breeze pushed past, lifting hair and shirt tails, like a whole wall had vanished instead of a window. “No one was around. She managed to cut the engine, but her leg was mangled and they had to amputate.”

“She was eighty,” said Lucia.

“A year later, she was back driving the tractor,” Evan said. “Strong stock.”

The familiar rhythm was a relief. Evan had always loved this story, and Rachel had her head tilted, soaking up every word. If they could all keep playing their parts, everything would settle.

“You always use that phrase,” Lucia said. “It’s like saying I have good birthing hips.”

“Your grandmother drove a tractor?” Rachel said.

“Hell, yes,” Lucia said.

She wouldn’t normally say “hell” in front of the girl. She wondered if Evan and Rachel had the same thought, because the silence thickened like custard, a few seconds changing the texture entirely. They remembered. They stood, unmoving and dry mouthed, until sirens cut through the quiet. The wails seemed to be coming from miles away, but it took less than a minute before the police car slid to a stop along the curb.

Lucia rushed to the not-there window. One police car. She had expected more.

Two men in blue, in no hurry to get out of the car. Adjusting the visors, reaching toward the floorboards or the glove compartment, and what might they be doing—Spitting out gum? Pulling out paperwork?

Lucia watched the one on the passenger side climb from the car, his every movement careful. She watched his black shoes ease onto the pavement. The way he boosted himself with a hand on the door. The way he ducked his head down, saying something to his partner, who was still inside the car. The two of them strolled up the driveway at a comfortable pace. Still, they’d arrived here very quickly.

She wondered if she was judging time poorly.

She stood by the door, aware of Evan tugging Moxie toward the guest bedroom. She waited for the policemen to knock and then she could not wait any longer, and she yanked the door open before they’d reached the welcome mat. She answered their hello and studied their faces: she didn’t know them.