Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1), Babette Jongh [books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT] 📗

if Melody had said the words herself, that my jealousy hadn’t caused her to die. I had sacrificed twelve years of my life wishing I could get back the man she’d stolen from me, but it hadn’t hurt her at all. The only person I’d really harmed was myself.

But I owed those three kids something, and not only because I’d promised Melody to take care of them. Because I loved them.

I stood and put my hand against the cooling marble of Melody’s headstone, then traced the letters of her name with my finger. “I’ll be here for your kids when they need me, Mel. I’ll cuddle them until they’re too old to let me. I’ll scold them when they’ve gotten too big for their britches. I’ll pick them up when they call me from a party because they’ve had too much to drink and they’re afraid to call Ben. I couldn’t do what you asked. But I think I can do what you’d want me to do. I hope that’ll be enough.”

I sighed and shoved my hands into my pockets, wishing I’d brought a more than a light jacket after all. “I love you, Melody,” I said, then turned to go.

I walked quickly, hoping the movement would warm me. The sky blazed violet and magenta along the horizon. The streetlights sent a circle of haze into the darkening sky.

Blue-day was the time of day my mama called it. The dusky blue of twilight just after sunset and just before full dark. As a child, I’d always been told to be home before blue-day. Woe be unto any child of my mother’s who wasn’t through the front door five minutes after the streetlights came on.

Several children ran screaming in a last-minute game of tag. Farther down the street, a crowd of sweat-shirted teenage boys played a rowdy game of basketball in someone’s driveway. Life went on all around me.

No matter who died, no matter whose dreams died, life went on.

When Lizzie and I got home, I made hot tea and bundled into a fleecy robe and slippers. I had just put a frozen dinner in the microwave when the phone rang. I grabbed my tea and ran to the living room to pick up. “Hello?”

“Hi, love. What are you up to?”

At the sound of Ian’s voice, I settled into my reading chair and drew my robe over my updrawn knees. “Waiting for the microwave so I can eat a starch-filled tasteless box-dinner by myself. What about you?”

“Feeling sorry for myself because I’m too far away from you.”

Several good responses flitted through my mind. Well, it’s your choice so live with it, or maybe, join the club. I went with, “Me, too.”

“What are you planning for tomorrow?” he asked, keeping the conversational ball rolling since I wasn’t helping much.

“Thanksgiving dinner with my folks.” There was a moment of silence then I added, “What about you?”

“I was planning on going with a tasteless, starch-filled box-dinner.”

“Oh.” I had to laugh. “Good. I hope you enjoy it. Just remember that you could be at my parent’s house, eating turkey and answering all my mom’s questions about everything you’ve done in your life up until this point.”

He chuckled. “I’m not sure if that would be good or bad.”

“Better than a box dinner.”

“Maybe I should just drop everything and drive down there.”

I sat up. “Could you?”

“I really have too much to do here. The sale’s a done deal as of today, and this long weekend is the perfect time for me to go through files and inventory. That way we can hit the ground running when everybody gets back to work on Monday.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you weekend-after-next, then.”

“Definitely.”

Yeah, unless something else comes up.

We talked for another fifteen minutes, but the whole time, all I could think was, there’s no way this is going to work. We’d limp along for a while, making do with daily phone calls and every-other-weekend visits, until eventually the phone calls came only once-a-week, and the visits dropped to once-a-month.

It was only a matter of time until we had to admit there was no future in this relationship.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Classes started back the Monday after Thanksgiving, and I was glad of the distraction. Days and nights without Ian moved slower than a salted snail, and I was so lonely that staying away from Ben and his kids became a constant effort.

A dozen times I stopped myself from picking up the phone just to be sure they were all doing okay. But I knew how bad it was to be second choice. I wasn’t going to use them that way, no matter how lonely I got.

Coming up with new choreography for all the classes kept me busy—not busy enough—but at least remembering the new combinations provided a challenge, especially during the advanced class at the end of the day. Still, my students and I had the chance to talk to each other while everyone changed into their pointe shoes.

“Hey, Miss Casey,” Claire said. “My Uncle Wilson said your boyfriend sold us down the river.”

“You mean, Ian?”

“Yeah.” Claire nodded, blond curls bobbing, eager to spill the juicy gossip. “My Uncle Wilson said—”

“Wait a minute,” Keely interrupted. “Wilson... you mean Wilson who works at the newspaper office? He’s your uncle?” Keely put both hands over her heart and sighed. “He’s so cute.”

Claire laughed at Keely’s dramatic gesture. “Yeah, but he doesn’t work there anymore. The new lady fired him, and then he quit.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?”

“She’s firing everybody.” Claire made quotation marks with her fingers. “Reorganizing.”

I couldn’t believe Ian would sell to someone he knew would fire everybody. He had said Bianca was a colleague of his, but he must not have realized what she’d planned to do. “But, I thought she was going to be the new editor.”

“Uncle Wilson said she and her husband own a lot of newspapers, but they don’t run them. They send in their own team to hire and train new people. Anybody who wants to keep