The house was empty. Zoe knew as soon as she walked through the front door. Only a clock ticking in the kitchen challenged the silence.Fear uncurled within her. Mommy, she though like a child. Is it the hospital again- or worse? She dropped her schoolbag in the hall, forgetting the open door, and walked slowly into the kitchen, afriad of what message might await her. There was a note on the refridgerator:Gone to the hospital. Don’t worry. Make your dinner. Be back when I can.Love, Dad.P.S. Don’t wait up.She crumpled the note and flung it at the trash can. It missed. She snorted in disgust. It seemed that lately all her conversations with her father had ben carried on with a banana refridgerator magnet as intermediary. The banana speaks, she thought. It defended the refridgerator, stopped her from opening the door. She couldn’t eat.Zoe the Bird they called her at school. She had always been thin, but now her bones seemed hollow. Her wrists and joints were bruised with shadows. She was almost as thin as her mother, wasting away with cancer in the hospital. A sympathy death ... read full excerpt from: The Silver Kiss ebook
