Read My Soul to Take for Free Online Page A

With a weak smile, Carlos reached into his inside jacket pocket just as John Wright had the day before. Phoenix noticed his hand’s tremor as he brought out three small, clear plastic boxes and gave them to Marcus. The boxes were filled with tiny brown beans.
    Clickclickclickclick
.
    “They’re
moving
!” Marcus said.
    “Mexican jumping beans,” Carlos said. “I got them in Miami. Happy birthday, kiddo.”
    Through it all, Carlos had remembered missing Marcus’s seventh birthday two days after he got the call about his mother’s death. During a tearful goodbye at LAX, Carlos had promised to bring him a special present.
    Carlos shared a brief, private look with Phoenix:
Best I could do
. She smiled to let him know he’d made the perfect choice, but his eyes stared straight through her. Phoenix didn’t see visible bruises, but Carlos’s tightly drawn shoulders made her wonder if he’d suffered a beating, or worse. Had he been jailed? Phoenix turned herface away from Marcus to hide her tears as she and Carlos tried to preserve their son’s happy reunion.
    “These are
awesome
!” Marcus said, already on his knees, scattering the beans to the wooden floor. “How do they
do
that?”
    Carlos didn’t answer, dropping his backpack and scanning the living room as if he expected to find something out of place. He went to the mail pile on the table, quickly flipping through the letters. Most of it was unopened fan mail, addressed to her. She’d barely noticed the mail while Carlos was gone. Carlos had once faced down a spirit to save her life, but Phoenix had never seen him look so overmatched.
    Surviving had mated them before they knew a thing about love.
    Phoenix wiped her eyes dry. “Worms inside,” she answered Marcus, remembering a lesson from R. R. Moton Elementary school in Miami. “They live in the beans, and they jump when they’re too warm. They like to be cold.”
    “Do they stay there forever?” Marcus said.
    “Pretty close,” Phoenix said. “They turn into moths sooner or later, but they only live a couple of days as moths. They spend most of their lives tucked inside their beans.”
    “Sucks for them,” Marcus said, trying on his favorite new phrase from Ronny’s older brother. No matter how much Phoenix tried to shelter him, the outside world intruded. Phoenix was thinking the exact opposite:
Lucky
them. A hard shell and all of life’s needs within touch? Wasn’t that her new dream?
    Carlos manfully spent as much time as he could playing on the GamePort with Marcus before he told his son he was tired and retreated to the bedroom. Phoenix spent two hours struggling to finish the day’s lessons despite Marcus’s excitement.
    It was a long afternoon.
    Phoenix peeked in on Carlos while Marcus finished his math assignment. He was lying on top of the bed fully clothed, staring at the door with unblinking eyes. Waiting.
    “Carlos, what happened?” she said, sitting beside him. She held his hand.
    Gently, Carlos pulled his hand away. Instead, he laid his palmacross her fuzzy scalp. “Later,” he said. “After Marcus is in bed. I don’t want to tell it in pieces.”
    Daylight lingered like his two-week absence, but night finally came. Phoenix brought Carlos a plate of chicken and rice, but he ate only a few bites and said he had an upset stomach, maybe later. He pushed the plate far away.
    They heard Marcus’s music from down the hall, the African lullabies they had played him since he was in his crib. Otherwise, the house was quiet.
    “Tell me, baby,” she said.
    Carlos was nearly hoarse by the time he told her how he’d found his mother in the observation room in the facility outside Maricao. Phoenix covered her mouth with her open palm, afraid she might scream. Mami had been one of her favorite people left in the world.
    “I was in a lab coat, so it took a while for someone to figure out I didn’t belong,” Carlos said. “They were Americans, Germans, I think … an Asian man. They