Deep Water by Mark Ayre (best free ebook reader txt) 📗

a fourteen-year prison sentence, most of which she had served. Regardless, Abbie found it difficult not to like the nearly sixty-year-old.

"I am," said Abbie. The question again made her think of Bobby and his smile and sent a pang through her heart. He wouldn't wake for at least another twenty minutes and probably wouldn't text for half an hour after that. Abbie had a little longer before she had to worry about breaking his heart, terminating her last chance at a slice of the normal life. "Why do you ask?"

"Isn't it obvious? You said it had been a decade since you were nineteen, so you're twenty-nine?"

Abbie nodded.

"Thirty this year, are you nervous?"

"Haven't really thought about it."

"Nor should you," said Alice. "My daughter Alex shares my birthday. She turns thirty tomorrow and is freaking out. I've told her it's just a number. It's not the passing days that age you, but children. You're not a mother, I take it?"

"No."

If Alice noticed the flash of grief that passed through Abbie's eyes, she chose, respectfully, not to mention it.

“As a teenager, I miscarried what would have been my first child,” said Alice, and this time it was Abbie that choose not to mention the flash of grief. "My firstborn arrived when I was eighteen. Overnight I jumped a generation, and it seemed like it. Felt like it too. I tell Alex if she wants to stay young, she should stay childless, but I'd never recommend that. My kids are the best thing I did."

"Does this relate to your question about my relationship status?" asked Abbie, wanting to move the conversation away from children. "Other than in it distracts me from discussing your imminent demise."

Alice laughed. "Have I mentioned you make a good first impression?"

"You have."

"Good," said Alice. "I like you. I… no, hang on. Come with me. This is the family room, and you're a friend. Indulge me."

Abbie was given no chance to dissent. As Abbie had done to Tony in the cafe, Alice left the room before Abbie could process what was happening.

Despite this, Abbie didn't rush to put away The Stand. She would never do that. With her usual excessive care and attention, Abbie picked the book off the surface and folded it into the pillowcase. Opening her drawstring bag, she placed the wrapped up book inside. The drawstring bag she tightened and slid over her shoulder. It rested as ever against her left hip. It was getting to the point she felt strange when it wasn't there. As though it were a phantom limb.

Book secure, Abbie rose and left the living room. From the kitchen at the end of the hall, she heard glasses clinking and a cupboard door swinging closed.

Following the sound, Abbie appeared in the kitchen as Alice placed the glasses on a granite counter and went to the fridge. In the room's centre was an island surrounded by stools which made Abbie think of Arthur's round table. Around the room were white goods and plenty of surface space. The sink was beneath a round window that looked onto the ocean.

"Stay away from there. Don't look."

Alice had removed a filter jug from the fridge and was returning to the glasses. She had called out when she saw Abbie approaching the sink.

"Why not?" said Abbie.

"It's like a trailer," said Alice, which didn't seem to explain anything. "I hate trailers. I see movies by filmmakers I like or ones I've picked at random by the name. I like to be surprised by the main event. Trailers only diminish the cinematic experience.”

After filling the glasses, Alice returned the jug of water to the fridge then collected the drinks. Her hands occupied, Alice nodded towards a door at the far right of the room, currently closed. Abbie crossed the room to open it and step through.

"The kitchen window is the trailer," said Alice as she followed Abbie through the door. "This is the movie."

They'd entered a large, rectangular room. A bar ran almost the entire length of one of the long sides and offered a wider selection of alcoholic and soft beverages than Abbie had seen in any pub she'd visited over the years. At the end of the bar was a door. Across the room were comfortable chairs and booths where people could drink, chat, and admire what Alice had compared to a movie.

Abbie understood the metaphor. Aside from a door that led outside, the entire length of the opposite long wall to the bar was a single glass window that offered a stunning view of the rocks, the ocean, and the horizon.

"My third husband had many desirable qualities," said Alice. "For this view, I might still have married him if he were an adulterous, cat kicking monster. When I was imprisoned, I missed nothing more than sitting on that balcony on a warm evening with a drink and the setting sun. Except my children. Maybe."

The door beside the window led to the rock balcony, which extended a few metres before dropping into the ocean. Abbie understood how easy it would be to miss the scenario Alice described.

"You must miss your husband."

Alice laughed. "What did my Tony say?"

"What makes you think he said anything?"

"I know my son. He will have mentioned my unfortunate habit of losing husbands and in a far more final way than divorce." Alice glanced at Abbie, then back to the ocean. "Yes, I miss Morris every day. He was an eccentric who rubbed many people up the wrong way, but he doted on his daughters, and he was good to me. It's been ten years, and I still think about him every day. Same for Tony's dad, my second husband, and he's been gone even longer. The rumour mill doesn't concern me."

"And what is the mill producing, regarding your husbands?"

"That I killed them," said Alice, without compunction. "The death of each has improved my situation—From pauper to comfortable, from comfortable to wealthy, from wealthy to filthy rich. Then there are the circumstances. Tony's father died of a heart attack,