The Marked Son (Keepers of Life) by Shea Berkley Page A

stutters up and down, and when she looks at Grandma, there’s a deep-seated dread behind her eyes. “Worse, I don’t want to. Dylan doesn’t belong. He’s never really belonged.”
    Grandma puts her hand to her temple, as if to cradle her mind, to comfort her distress. Thick silence descends on the kitchen. The truth is finally out. Deep down, I’ve always known. The scared looks. The nervousness.
    The empty hole I’ve always carried within me grows heavy.
    “Honey,” Grandma finally says. “I don’t know what to say.”
    A sad vulnerability washes over Mom’s face. “You know, I thought I loved him. He was so handsome, and I was so young. I thought we’d be together forever. But he showed me the cruelest fairy tale of all, and I can’t pretend anymore.”
    “Addy.” Grandma holds out her hand, begging Mom to take it.
    Mom stares at the hand, the pull to take it a visible struggle. Her eyes reflect her tension as they shift to Grandma’s blue ones. “You love me, don’t you?”
    “Since the moment you came into my life.”
    “You want me to be happy, don’t you?”
    “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
    “I brought Dylan here to set him free.” Mom’s lips quiver. She puts her fingertips to them, whether to stop their trembling or stop the words that flow in hurtful waves. “Please,” she whispers past her fingers, “make him go. If you don’t, I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be happy again.”
    With Grandma shaking her head as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing, Mom whirls about and runs out the back door.
    I shiver though I’m not cold. My mind feels like it’s encased in ice, and I need to chip away at the frozen bits and pieces to figure out what’s going on. None of it makes sense.
    Grandma stays seated, her eyes unfocused and confused. “Oh God,” she whispers. “This can’t be happening. Help her.”
    I hear the car start. Mom has run to the front of the house. She’s leaving, and I can’t seem to feel anything. I stand there in the shadows, a shell of skin and bones, with a battered soul.
    Grandma gets to her feet and heads toward the front door without seeing me. I’ve become a shadow, and I follow quietly behind her.
    She pushes the screen door open and steps onto the front porch among the calls of the crickets and frogs. Mom’s car speeds away, trailer in tow, spitting mud and water and gravel toward the porch and off into the yard, where bits of rock ping off the ugly metal sculptures. Grandma’s hands cover her mouth, and after a moment, her breathing becomes a ragged mess.
    Mom’s done it again. She’s left her family with no excuses, except for a finger pointing squarely at me. The unwanted son. I push at the door and Grandma twirls about, her eyes shadowed by sadness. “Dylan. What are you doing up?”
    “She’s gone.” Something inside me is slowly withering, taking me with it. Nausea creeps over my body.
    She stares after the twin spots of red swiftly fading from sight. “She’ll be back.”
    “No, she won’t.” It’s as if Mom’s been whispering it in my ear since the day I was born. Everything she’s done has led to this moment. It’s hard to feel sorry, or mad, or anything. I’m too numb.
    We continue to stare at the lights until they’re swallowed by the night. “I guess that’s why she never said much on the way up here. She never intended to stay.”
    “She’ll be back.”
    Grandma sounds confident. “Is that what you told Grandpa the first time she left?”
    Her arms snake about her waist in a comforting hug. “She came back.”
    What’s wrong with her? Mom ditches her family for a nomadic life and for seventeen years she doesn’t contact them—not even to say she’s alive? I seriously don’t get it. What bizarre hope is Grandma hanging onto?
    Out of nowhere, anger, fueled by my sour stomach and a killer headache, wells inside me. “Stop kidding yourself. She didn’t come back. She barely slowed down to throw me out