Escaping Fate Read Online Free Page A

asked.
    “She drowned when she was a kid. I
don’t know much about her,” he said quietly.
    Drowned as a kid? I wondered if my dad
was thinking about his own sister. I hoped he was. Maybe if he
thought about her more often he would eventually talk about
her.
    “How old was she?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. My dad didn’t talk about
her much,” he said taking a bite of his tuna sandwich and pushing
the picture back across the table towards me.
    My dad’s words bothered me. Maera died
young, too? The coincidence was definitely not lost on me. Maybe
because my dad saw death and sickness every day at the hospital, a
young girl drowning was simply a sad occurrence and not something
to dwell on too much, but I could not put the pictures down. I
shook my head and sighed. I hated the thought of people dying, and
the strangeness of the two girls dying young made me sad and
somewhat concerned. Something felt a little off when I thought
about it. The feeling was wrapped up in the strange compulsion I
felt to learn my about my dead aunt. Glancing over at my dad, I
could see that he did not want to continue the conversation. I
wanted to push him, but the firm set of his jaw made me hold back.
Setting the pictures back on the table, I sat down for
lunch.
    As the pungent tuna filled my mouth I
kept wondering why they died and if the same thing could ever
happen to me. I shook my head at my runaway imagination and tried
to think more rationally. Even if the deaths were only a strange
coincidence, it did bother me that my dad would not talk about his
sister. Putting aside the uneasiness settling in my mind and the
hard look on my dad’s face, I asked my dad about Katie.
    “Dad,” I said, waiting for him to look
up before finishing, “why don’t you talk about Katie? I didn’t even
know that you had a sister.” A quick look from my mom almost made
me regret the bringing up the topic.
    My dad had turned away from the photo
of Maera when my mom tried to show it to him. I don’t think he had
even noticed that there was another photo on the table. He saw the
photo now, and despite his wince, picked it up.
    “Wow,” he muttered, “I can’t believe
how alike they look.” He looked up at me, and stared at me as if he
had never really seen me before “Even you, you look so much like my
sister Katie. I never knew Maera, but look,” he said, pausing, but
not turning the pictures for anyone else to see. “Isn’t it amazing
how much the three of you look alike? It’s uncanny.”
    My mom smiled warmly at him. She patted
his arm in support, but I had not gotten an answer to my question
yet. I doubted I’d have another chance any time soon to bring it
up, so I pushed a little harder.
    “But, why didn’t you ever tell me about
her?”
    “If I hadn’t taken her out riding that
day, you would have been able to get to know her yourself,” he
snapped. The photos dropped back to the table as he stood up and
turned away. His meal was only half finished, but I stared at his
back as he stalked out of the kitchen.
    “Arra,” my mom sighed, “I told you he
didn’t like to talk about Katie. Why did you have to bring it up?”
She quickly cleared the dishes and put them in the sink before
moving to follow after her husband.
    I felt awful for pushing my dad, but
why should I? I was just trying to find out about my own family. My
dad should not pretend that Katie never existed. It was a terrible
thing to do to someone.
    “But, mom,” I said. She stopped and
turned back. “I get that it’s hard for him to talk about her, but
how could he just forget she ever existed?”
    “Arra, he hasn’t forgotten. That’s the
problem. He thinks about her all the time and blames himself for
getting her killed. Would you want to talk about something like
that all the time?” she asked.
    “What if it happened to me, mom? Would
everybody just stop talking about me and put away all the pictures
of me, just so it wouldn’t hurt as bad? Could you