Read The House on Mermaid Point for Free Online Page B

they fell in behind Avery’s bulging Mini Cooper and the two women shoehorned into it.
    Kyra yawned and laid her head against the window as they picked their way through morning traffic then headed east across the state to pick up I-95.
    “What a gorgeous day!” Maddie’s every pronouncement rang with the kind of good humor that demanded an exclamation point. “I can’t wait to see the Keys! All the travel guides I picked up are on the backseat if you’re interested. I thought reading up on all of the keys would be a good idea so that we’d be prepared for wherever we end up.”
    Kyra blinked sleepily. Yawned. She was nowhere near ready to face the day her mother seemed to be embracing so joyfully, and it wasn’t just because Dustin had fussed during the night. Maddie’s mood had lightened with each mile put between them and Atlanta. Kyra knew her father had fucked things up royally, but even so it was disturbing to see just how much the proximity to her father and the life they’d lived had been weighing her mother down. And how much she seemed to be looking forward to the challenges ahead of them.
    Maddie turned on the radio and began to hum along. Kyra’s eyes fluttered shut on the thought that if her mother’s mood lightened any further, she’d be floating above the minivan instead of sitting inside it by the time they reached Miami.
    When she woke hours later her mother was still humming. Dustin whimpered in his sleep. His long lashes flew open and his face scrunched up. He began to cry.
    “Yikes,” Kyra said. “Are your teeth still hurting you, little man?”
    Dustin poked his thumb into his mouth and began to suck mightily.
    “Hold on, Dustin. Help is on the way.” Pulling the backpack that served as diaper bag and holder of all things Dustin into her lap, she rooted around until she located the teething ring. “Here you go.” She handed it to him and watched him shove it in his mouth and begin to gnaw. “Do you want to read a book?” He nodded vigorously, and she pulled out a board book about boats that Chase had given him. “Boog!” he said, his mouth still clamped around the knobby rubber ring.
    Once he was settled, Kyra looked around. “Where are we?”
    “We’re on the Florida Turnpike headed south.” Her mother was smiling. “According to the GPS we just keep going until we hit U.S. 1. Did you know that U.S. Highway 1 starts at the northern tip of Maine and goes all the way to the Monroe County courthouse in Key West, which is Mile Marker Zero? That’s the very southernmost tip of the continental United States.”
    “Cool.” Kyra knew she should be glad that her mother sounded so happy, but Maddie’s eagerness to embrace her future was even more disturbing than seeing her father with his new girlfriend, Kelly. And that was truly cringe-worthy.
    “What happened to Avery and Deirdre?” she asked, seeing no sign of the Mini Cooper.
    “They got off a couple of exits ago for gas. Since it’s a pretty straight shot we decided not to worry too much about caravanning.”
    Kyra yawned. Her stomach rumbled. The teething ring dropped out of Dustin’s mouth and he began to kick his legs. “Can we stop soon? I think it’s time for a diaper change. And I wouldn’t mind grabbing something to eat.”
    “Sounds good,” Maddie said. “I could definitely use a pit stop. And we should probably go ahead and top off the gas tank.”
    “I’ll drive after that,” Kyra offered with what she hoped would be a last yawn. “I just need to get some fuel and caffeine in my own tank.”
    As soon as they switched seats, her mother took what turned out to be a major collection of travel guides from the backseat, arranged them in her lap, and began to spout Florida Keys factoids at an alarming rate. Dustin did his share of pointing and babbling as they passed Homestead and skirted the Everglades, stuck in a line of slow-moving cars inching their way south. But each piece of Keys trivia or history