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“Mama!” he shouted
“Hear, hear,” Mac said, his blue eyes sad, and they all raised their glasses and Julia figured, of all her fresh starts and new beginnings, this one, as painful as it was, had to be her favorite
But that night she dreamed of Jesse The old dreams, in which he had holes in his chest and his eyes were dead She woke up with a gasp and painful lurch of heart
I can’t save him, she reminded herself He has to do that himself
But it didn’t stop her loving hi out her darkto the mountains, when that would end
She feared never
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JESSE WORKED like a man possessed His body ached and burned with old and neounds The first night Julia and Ben were gone, he took some of the pain medication that he had left—pain medication he hadn’t touched in weeks because of Julia and Ben That night his dreaers, were torture, so the nexthe dumped the meds out
He worked Four days later the roof was half-finished, but he couldn’t sweat or beat out his rets
“Looks good!”
Jesse peered over edge of the roof and saw Mac standing on his lawn, his hands in his pockets
“Thanks” Jesse stood, braced himself when the blood rushed to his head and then carefully made his way down the ladder It’d been four days since Julia had left and he wanted to pump Mac for information
“You’ve been pretty busy,” Mac said, holding the ladder as Jesse stepped off the botto He wiped his filthy hands on hisT-shirt and shook Mac’s palm It was his first contact with another person in four days and he was surprised at how good the solid warh Do you ever sleep?”
“Not h a little “How is Rachel?”
“Happy Hungry” Mac shrugged “Life is good”
Jesse smiled Gladness, like soheadedness, bloout
“Come by for dinner and see for yourself”
“I’ve got a lot of work to do” Jesse lifted a hand toward the roof The truth was, stepping inside of his sister’s happy house wasn’t so he could deal with His brush with the land of the living had proved disastrous He was better on the roof Alone
“Working yourself to death or , Jesse Mitch will still be dead”