Julia's Daughters Read Online Free Page B

waiting room and told us they’d been unable to revive Caitlin, but that was instinctive. Like clinging to a life raft as the ship goes down. We held hands at the funeral, but that’s been the limit of our physical contact. It’s not that I don’t think Ben is hurting. That’s not it at all. Maybe it’s the opposite. I know he’s hurting so badly that I’m afraid to touch him, afraid his pain will rub off on me and it will be too much. I’ll collapse under the weight of our combined pain. Or maybe I’ll just disintegrate. I’ll disappear in a wisp of smoke or a puddle of green plasma goo.
    â€œJules.” Ben’s voice penetrates my thoughts. He and Laney are the only people who ever call me Jules. The only people who know me intimately enough to call me Jules.
    He turns on the light on my side of the bed and I squint. I have to make myself look at him. I fight tears on the verge. I know he’s got to be sick of listening to me cry. I’m sick of listening to me cry.
    â€œDrugs?” he says. “She’s doing drugs now?”
    â€œMarijuana,” I say, meeting his gaze for just an instant. I sit up. His eyes are brown. Nice eyes. His eyes were the first things I noticed the night I met him at Cal State, Bakersfield, where we were both students. “It’s practically legal.” I consider reminding him that he’s been known to take a hit from a joint with his brothers on Sunday afternoons in their mom’s backyard, but I don’t. It’s never really been an issue between us. I don’t smoke it; I don’t have anything morally against it for adults, but a glass of wine or beer is my limit to mind-altering substances.
    â€œWhat about the pills?” he asks. “Where did she get them? One of her friends, I bet. Cassie or . . . or that asshole Todd.” He strokes his receding hairline. “I told you we should have forbidden her to see him after that run-in with the police at Christmas. Mom said we’d regret it if we didn’t.”
    I exhale. “It wasn’t a run-in with the police. They were in a fender bender. He wasn’t even at fault.” Ben’s right, though. Todd is an asshole. Just not the responsible asshole, in this case. “Haley says she stole the Percocet from your mom’s medicine cabinet.”
    He doesn’t react. He rarely does when the conversation has anything to do with his mommy doing something or saying something she shouldn’t. It’s like he’s totally blind to her flaws.
    â€œWas Haley taking the pills?” he asks. “You said it was a whole bagful. Was she taking them or selling them?”
    I close my eyes for a moment. “Probably both.”
    He pinches his temples between his thumb and forefinger as if he can squeeze the truth out of his head, or just the knowledge of it.
    I note he’s not interested in discussing the fact that his mother is making drugs available to our daughter. There had to have been forty in the sandwich bag. I wonder how Linda didn’t notice that she was missing forty Percocet.
    â€œI can’t believe she’s been expelled.” He throws up his hand. “How the hell is she going to graduate now? She can’t even go to community college without a high school degree. I guess we could send her away for a semester or two.” His gaze darts to mine for just an instant and then he looks at his shoes.
    I frown. “Send her away?”
    â€œMom thinks we should consider a boarding prep school. St. Andrews won’t take her, of course, but maybe even outside the US . . . France, maybe.” He’s talking too fast for these to be his own words. He and his brothers all attended St. Andrews boarding school from the sixth grade through the twelfth. Linda couldn’t be bothered to parent through the difficult years. “Haley wanted to go on that trip last Easter to France. Kids do it all the