Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1) by Babette Jongh (inspiring books for teens txt) 📗

through the city and emptied into the Black River. The canal is often a quiet, magical place where birds flit through the leafy canopy overhead and small animals drink from the circular pools dug by decades of swirling currents of rainwater. Other times, a maelstrom of white-capped waves pound through the channel, charging toward release at the river’s edge.

Amy and I joined the others, and we all looked over the back fence together.

Most days, the canal floor would be visible here, pale as chalk in some places, bright green with slippery algae in others. But today, because of the unusually rainy fall season, the waters churned, high and brown with sediment.

Amy’s question whirled in my mind like the rushing waters below. A question that would have to be answered, but perhaps better answered by Ben. I wanted to talk to Amy, to help her work though her questions about Melody’s passing. But maybe my willingness to help enabled Ben to distance himself from his children when they should be growing closer as a family.

“Look!” Maryann grabbed Jake’s arm. “I see a snapping turtle!”

“That’s a Red-eared Slider, Doofus.” Jake shook Maryann’s hand off his arm.

Maryann stamped her foot. “I am not a Doofus!”

Seeking distraction from the brewing argument, I walked back toward the house. “Come look at the climbing tree. See that bunch of leaves there at the top?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jake said, his voice bored. “It’s a squirrel nest.”

“Really?” Maryann asked, “Are there any baby squirrels in it?”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Not now. But I’d bet this tree houses a new batch of babies every spring.”

“I’m hungry,” Amy whined.

I held out a hand to her. “Who wants to go to Bo’s Diner and then to the park?” For once, Jake offered no opposition, and we locked the door on the empty house and piled into the car.

*

On Sunday, Lois took the kids to Sunday school and planned to keep them through the afternoon, so Lizzie and I headed home. On the way, I called Ben to tell him to pick up the kids at Lois and Herb’s house when he got back into town.

“I’m almost home now,” he said. “I left Birmingham at dawn, so you and I could look at the new house together while the kids are at church with Lois. You still have the key?”

I don’t know why I suddenly wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for days. I suppose I was just tired of dealing with other people’s junk. Even if it was good junk, I was sick of it.

“Ben, can’t you look at it by yourself? The key is on your kitchen table.”

“Where are you?”

“I told you, Lizzie and I are going home.”

“I’m pulling into my driveway right now. I’ll get the key. Meet me at the new house.”

I sighed. “Ben, please. I’m tired, and I need to do laundry.”

“Come on, Angel.” His voice was cajoling, sweet, boyish. The same one he’d used to convince me to take my bra off when I was sixteen. “I want us to talk without the kids around. I promise you’ll be back at your house before ten a.m.”

“Fine,” I snapped. Parking in front of my house, I let Lizzie out of the car and marched across the morning-damp grass to let her into the back yard. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I made it in ten, but Ben was already there. His empty car was in the driveway, its hood making pinging noises as it cooled. He had left the house door open a crack, so I went in. “Ben?”

“Up here.” I heard a door close upstairs and then the sound of footsteps in the hall. Looking up, I watched him come down the stairs, wearing jeans and a travel-wrinkled T-shirt, a lopsided grin on his handsome face. “The house is perfect.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said. “I thought it would work for y’all.”

Ben met me at the bottom of the stairs and pinned me with his intense blue gaze. “This doesn’t upset you, does it? The fact that I want to move out of the house where Melody and I...”

His voice trailed away awkwardly, and I knew why he felt strange talking about this. I had a history with Ben that didn’t include Melody, but I also had a history with Melody that didn’t include Ben. She was my best friend, and I might have felt outraged on her behalf that Ben was ready to abandon the home where they’d shared so many happy years together.

“It’s okay.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure moving was the right thing for y’all at first, but I’ve come around. I think this will be perfect for you and the kids.”

Ben sat on the bottom stair and drew me down to sit beside him. “What about you?”

I fiddled with the laces of my Keds. “What about me?”

Ben sighed, and leaned against me. “It’s too early for me to be thinking about starting a relationship, but one of these days, I don’t know when, I will be ready. And when that time comes, you’d be the perfect—”

“Stop right there.” I held up a hand. “I refuse to be anybody’s most convenient choice. Even yours.”

“It’s not that.” Ben put an arm around my shoulders when I would have pulled away. “You know I love you. Like I said before. Always have, always will.”

“I know you’ll always love me. And I’ll always love you. But it’s not the same kind of love you had with Mel.”

“It was, once. And it’s more than a lot of people ever get.”

“Well, I want more.” I leaned my head on his shoulder and snaked an arm around his waist. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve had more. I had more with you, then I had more with Melody. Maybe that’s all I can expect in one lifetime.”

“Ben, I don’t think that’s true.” I squeezed his hand, and held him close with the arm I still had around his waist. “I was your first