Chapters (50)
- COVER
- PRAISE FOR TITLES BY MIRANDA JAMES
- ALSO BY MIRANDA JAMES
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT
- DEDICATION
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- AFTERWORD
- LETTER TO THE READER
- SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART
“Actually the files were mostly newspaper articles with some magazine ones, too,” Melba said. “There was a real small file folder with a few letters, and two of them were Carrie’s prize possessions.”
“Why were they so important?” Kanesha asked when Melba failed to continue.
Melba didn’t answer right away. She stared at her mug, but when I offered more coffee, she shook her head. “I’m gathering my thoughts, is all. What I’m going to tell you may sound real pathetic to you, but it’s the truth about Carrie and who she was and how she felt.” For a moment I thought she was going to cry, but she took a deep breath and looked at each of us in turn.
“Go on, honey,” I said softly. “Just tell us.”
Melba nodded. “When she was around ten or eleven, Carrie said, all she could think about was Veronica Thane. She started reading those books about then, and she said when she read the first one, it felt like she had found a sister. I know that probably sounds weird, but it was how she felt. See, Carrie was an orphan like Veronica, and I guess she kind of identified with the girl in the books because of that.”
Kanesha nodded. “It’s understandable.”
Looking slightly relieved, Melba continued. “The thing was, Veronica had this rich old lady who took her in, and she had all the nice clothes she could wear, had her own car, and lived in a mansion with servants. Carrie got adopted by a couple who were doing okay when she first went to them, but not long after, her dad went bust somehow, and they were pretty poor. Veronica lived the kind of happy fancy life that Carrie wanted, and so she latched on to that character and just never outgrew her.”
The poignancy of Carrie Taylor’s story touched me, and I could tell that it affected Kanesha as well. She presented a hard shell to the world, but I knew there was a compassionate person underneath it. Melba’s words affected us both.
Diesel sensed this, too. After sitting contentedly by Melba all this time, he reacted to the emotional temperature change and warbled a few times. Even Kanesha smiled. Melba scratched the cat’s head, and after a moment Diesel moved around to me. I had to give him attention and assure him that I was okay. He was still a bit shy of Kanesha, however.