Seeds of Time by K. C. Dyer Page A

politely.
    After dinner, Brodie asked Darrell if she would be interested in looking at some rock formations on the beach. She thought about refusing and then swallowed her pride and agreed. They walked down to the beach and followed the rock face for some distance. Delaney met them on the sand and trailed them down to the rocks. Brodie pointed out several fossils embedded in the cliff walls. After half an hour or so of hard fossil hunting, they headed for a log in the sand near the cliff face.
    Darrell sat down on the log and ran her toes through the sand. Delaney curled up on the sand between them. The late evening sun felt warm on her face, and she turned to Brodie.
    â€œYour family must be proud of you,” she said quietly. “About the award, I mean.”
    â€œYeah, I guess so,” he answered.
    There was a long silence. Brodie looked down and collected his nerve as he glanced at Darrell’s leg. “How did you lose your foot?” he asked quietly, his face carefully blank.
    Darrell felt her anger from earlier in the day surge. “How did you get to be such an idiot?” she replied with a snarl. “It just happened, that’s all. A long time ago.” She fell silent, and then looked at him defiantly. “I don’t have to tell you anything, y’know. It’s none of your business.”

    Brodie looked embarrassed. “You’re right,” he said, standing up. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” Darrell lifted her head, and Brodie looked straight into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to learn more about you. We’ll be in school together all summer and ...” he paused. “I just thought you might
want
to tell me.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Darrell cut him off, her anger breaking. She ducked her head again, and picked up a stick from the sand. “I’m just a little sensitive about it. My foot was amputated after I broke it really badly in an accident three years ago.” She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
    Brodie winced and looked again at Darrell. She could feel the wind blow her hair around lightly, and tried to blink away the tears in her eyes. He bent to pick up a rock and tossed it out toward the surf.
    Darrell tapped the toes of her prosthetic foot with a stick and remembered the day when, at ten years of age, her life had changed forever. She lost her father and her leg in one terrible instant.
    Darrell threw the stick violently at the sea. She opened her mouth to say something sharp, closed it again, and burst into tears. She cried bitterly for a few minutes. As her sobs tapered off, Brodie handed her an old paper napkin.
    â€œSorry,” he said. “It is clean, it’s just been in my pocket for a while.”
    Darrell sniffed and wiped her eyes.

    â€œIt’s okay,” she said indistinctly, and a moment later she remembered to say, “Thanks.” Brodie sat back down. Darrell began to speak as though in a dream, slowly at first and then with increasing speed.
    â€œI can hardly remember it,” she began. “I never really lived with my dad. He and my mother split up when I was really young. He worked as an extra in the movie industry and just drove around from job to job. He would rent a place to live for a few months and then just move on.” She blew her nose and continued. “My mom says it was no life for someone who had a kid, but he just kept doing it.”
    â€œHow was your dad involved in the accident?” Brodie asked.
    Darrell took a deep breath and told Brodie the story. She spoke about the day in the summer when she was ten, driving down a winding highway on their way home to Vancouver after an afternoon of swimming and ice cream. Their motorcycle was blind-sided by a car, and she and her father had been thrown in front of a truck by the force of the crash. In his final millisecond, he put the strength of all his love into a brutal push that