Читать книгу Wild Cat And The Marine - Jade Taylor - Страница 7

BEFORE SIX-YEAR-OLD Catherine Darnell went to sleep, she said a prayer. Squinching her eyes shut, she swiped tangled black hair away from her face and pressed thin, scratched hands together under her chin. She recited the appeal she made nearly every night. “Please God, don’t let us move somewhere new tonight. I really want to stay here so Bobby and Arlene Sanders can be my friends forever. Don’t let Daddy get mad at his boss again. Please, please, God, make Mommy come back and live with me and Daddy. Amen.”

God didn’t answer that prayer, either. Two nights later, her father woke her in the middle of the night, kissed her once and carried her out to their rusty brown Ford Maverick. He laid her on the back seat along with two battered suitcases, sheets, blankets and the chipped ceramic figure of a rearing black horse he’d given her two months ago. Daddy put her mother’s jade necklace around her neck and whispered something about being sorry, then got into the driver’s seat.

Catherine watched as her father used a leather string to tie his straight black hair into a ragged ponytail. He pitched his cigarette out the window, tossed the road map onto the seat beside him and slammed the old car into gear. The wheels tossed gravel from the worn rear tires as he gunned the car out of the driveway and left the shabby little rented house on Roosevelt Street, her mother and all things familiar behind.