Читать книгу After the Silence - Rula Sinara - Страница 14

CHAPTER FOUR

Dear Diary,

I wish I didn’t ever have to go to school again. Sara keeps talking about her new puppy. Daddy said no to the one Mommy got. It was supposed to be a present for him staying home. I think he wants to go away.

HOPE COULD NOW add jet lag to her list of worldly experiences. She needed caffeine. The last time she’d made her own coffee, she’d used a French press, not a drip machine like Ben had, but she knew how to follow instructions. She set up the filter and coffee grounds she’d found in the cabinet overhead, then turned on the coffeemaker. To her relief, it gurgled and started to fill. Thank goodness Ben didn’t mind ordering take-out food. Actual cooking was beyond her abilities.

She padded quietly to where one of her suitcases still sat against the wall by the entry. Ben had carried the one that had her clothes and necessities in it to Chad’s room last night. This one would get emptied today. It was mostly filled with gifts Anna and Jack had asked her to take to the kids for them. What weighed it down were the medical texts her father told her she should take along, so that her brain didn’t atrophy.

She got down on her knees, unlocked the suitcase and leaned the upper half back against the wall. Cooing came from a white baby monitor set on the end table next to the couch. Did Ben have another unit in his room? Or did he forget this one here last night?

A blur of orange caught her eye as something—or someone—scurried from the hall and disappeared into the kitchen. Two big eyes spied on her from behind the counter. Hope pretended not to notice and instead began taking gift-wrapped items out and carefully setting them down on the carpet next to her.

“Hmm. I think this present is for the baby, and this one, I was told, had to make it into the hands of the older boy.” She rummaged as if she’d lost something. “Did I forget the present Jack and Anna said was for their niece?”

A little girl Hope knew had to be Maddie inched closer. The pumpkin-dotted hem of her orange nightgown skimmed the floor, and she hugged a stuffed monkey to her chest. Tangled hair framed her delicate face.

“I see I’m not the only one up early,” Hope said. “Good morning. I’m Hope, one of your uncle Jack and auntie Anna’s friends. You must be Maddie.”

The girl gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“I had better find the present they sent you, then. They’d never forgive me.” Hope pulled out the package she knew was Maddie’s and held it out. Maddie got down on the carpet, set her monkey aside and began to unwrap. Her eyes lit up at the wooden keepsake box carved with elephants.

“You like it?” Hope asked. Maddie gave her a silent yes.

The cooing from the monitor turned into a staccato cry. Hope was going to assume that Ben forgot the monitor. They hadn’t really gone over how things would work. How much she’d help versus getting out on her own to enjoy her time here.