Read For This Life Only for Free Online Page A

sideways. Her mother caught her, and a murmur rose through the crowd near them.
    I swallowed hard, my stomach churning with nausea.
    A hand caught at mine, startling me.
    I glanced down in surprise. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped moving.
    An old woman, in her seventies or maybe eighties, smiled up at me and closed her other hand over mine, clasping it. Her bones were frail beneath that paper-thin skin, the dark blue veins between her knuckles ropy and prominent.
    â€œGod saved you for a reason,” she said with a knowing wink of her watery blue eyes. “He brought you back for a purpose.”
    At her words, hot plumes of acid flooded the back ofmy throat. I was going to be sick on the floor in the sanctuary if I didn’t move.
    I tore free from the elderly woman’s gentle grasp. “Sorry,” I managed, and headed as fast as I could for the doors at the back. A wave of gasps followed my retreat.
    I made it through the narthex and down the steps outside, barely, before heaving my orange juice into the bushes, right below the Riverwoods Bible Church sign.

CHAPTER FIVE
----
    THE RUMBLE OF THE garage door signaled the approach of my fate. It also served as a three-minute warning, sending everyone scrambling to find their places.
    â€œJace, table, now!” My mom called from downstairs, and by the time I made it to the railing at the top of the stairs that overlooked the lower level, she was already moving into the dining room.
    She glanced up at me, her hands full with the serving platter of roast beef. “Grab the potatoes, please.” Her thumbs were white on the edge of the plate.
    Family dinner on Sunday was a requirement, no matter what else was going on. Baseball, debate team, whatever. Didn’t matter.
    Even on days when I bolted from church and made a huge scene, apparently. Not that I was the only one. Sarahhad flipped out, crying and screaming, as soon as I was out of sight.
    When my mom had found me outside, racked by dry heaves, she’d said nothing. Just started for the van, a sobbing Sarah clinging to her legs.
    Once we were in the van, heading home, she asked, without looking at me, “It’s too much, right? That’s all. It’s too hard to be there without him.” Her voice had broken on the last words, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. She was, I was sure, describing her own feelings as much as mine.
    So I’d simply nodded.
    I couldn’t talk to her, not just about Eli but about what I’d seen—or hadn’t—that night when I was . . . gone. The blackness where there should have been light, and the creeping fear of what that meant. And telling my dad? Forget it. He’d probably cite chapter and verse from the Bible, just as Eli would have. And I might be tempted to let him try. Except I didn’t want to know how much worse it would feel if he failed to make his case.
    I limped downstairs to the kitchen, grabbed the bowl of mashed potatoes off the island counter, and followed my mom’s path into the dining room.
    The sight of five chairs at the polished wooden table made a bolt of fresh pain go through me, as it always did. My mom and Sarah on one side, me and Eli on theother, with my dad on the end. That’s the way it used to be, anyway.
    Sometimes, I wished they would rearrange our places and take the extra chair away, instead of leaving it there like a broken tooth that everyone pretended not to see.
    Bracing myself, I sat in my chair. Sarah’s place was set, but she was, per her now usual behavior, on the floor beneath the table. Patsie sat as guardian in her chair.
    I peeked beneath the table to see what she was doing.
    She was tucked against the legs of her chair, making two of her My Little Ponies gallop along the bottom rung. Her mouth moved with silent horse noises, hooves clopping, maybe.
    â€œHey,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
    She ignored me, her ponies pausing only