The One That Got Away Read Online Free Page A

house every night; a coaching job he quit afterdiscovering today’s kids had no motivation; and a maddening month trying to become a financial advisor. In the end nothing made him happy, and in all cases his income was lower than Serena’s, a humiliation his pride could only abide from overseas.
    Jade interrupted Serena’s litany of Jamie’s professional failures, abruptly getting her on track. “ Why do you need him home full-time again? You’ve managed pretty well all these years.”
    â€œWell, when your home turns into a war zone, you need a general to help restore order.”
    â€œA war zone? Come on, Dawn can’t possibly be that bad.”
    Jade’s immediate assumption that Dawn, Serena’s fourteen-year-old, was the problem hurt only because Jade was exactly right. After Dawn’s freshman year at a magnet school, Serena had pulled the child out, if only out of respect for the other kids on the school’s waiting list. Dawn, for her part, had been too busy skipping class or falling asleep in it to appreciate her teachers’ efforts. “She’s getting worse,” Serena said, tracing an absentminded pattern into the marble counter. “She treats Sydney like they aren’t even sisters.”
    â€œWhat did she do now?”
    Tears welling up in her eyes, Serena recounted the mean-spirited prank Dawn pulled recently on ten-year-old Sydney. Not only had she sneaked into her little sister’s bedroom when the child was changing clothes, she’d snapped embarrassing photos of her sister’s naked behind and passed them around to kids in the neighborhood, several of whom attended Sydney’s school. As a parent and as treasurer of Cincinnati Public Schools, Serena had been horrified by her own child’s actions.
    â€œShe tried to say it was payback for Sydney telling on her for talking on the phone to certain boys whose calls I’d forbidden,” Serena told Jade, shaking her head. “But there’s more to it. I swear, it’s like Dawn wants everyone else to be as miserable as she is.”
    Jade peered at her friend sympathetically. “Does any of this have to do with Brady?” Brady—Serena’s high school sweetheart, first lover, and Dawn’s father—had been a ruggedly handsome son of army officers who’d enrolled in the corps straight out of highschool. In the two years that passed between Dawn’s birth and Brady’s death by friendly fire in the first Gulf War, he’d been a devoted father and a faithful provider of child support. He was a good man, but at seventeen Serena hadn’t been ready to be his wife, or anyone else’s, for that matter.
    â€œI know she’s struggling with Brady’s memory,” Serena replied. As she came of age in a time rocked by the current Iraq War, Dawn was constantly reminded of the “prequel” war that took her father’s life. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for her, but that’s still no excuse for her to neglect school or treat her sister like an enemy.”
    Jade leaned forward, her hands gripping the countertop. “I’m not trying to excuse Dawn, Serena, but you know society’s also to blame for her behavior. She’s trying to cut Sydney down to size.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œSerena, let’s not play blind.” Jade was standing now, his intense gaze softened around the edges, a compensation for the frankness in her tone. “Both your girls are beautiful, Serena, but if Dawn looks like a young Angela Bassett, Sydney’s a miniature Halle Berry.”
    Jade’s polarizing imagery sent a bristling wave up Serena’s back. “And?” She absolutely hated when people tried to divide black folk by focusing on complexion or hair texture. For years, Serena had experimented with ways to camouflage her own Halle-type looks to avoid being painted into the