The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

I’d say.” But that was putting it lightly. Barbara, too, worried about the hardship hanging over the Russell family. Bert was desperate to find a new job, and his agonizing had upset the whole household, including Alice, their girls Phoebe and Elisabeth, and herself. What if the Russells moved or couldn’t keep her anymore?

“It’s a lousy time to be a patent lawyer,” her father said. “Rotten luck for all of them.”

“Alice is trying to sell a few stories to tide them over.” Barbara breathed in the sagebrush and dusty-earth smells around her. She didn’t mind this climate at all, especially knowing Connecticut was buried in snow. She hoped to stay with the Russells a good many more months, at least until spring. Except her mother wanted them to move back East as soon as possible—to get the renters to sign a long-term lease and keep the rent income rolling in. Barbara fended her off by claiming she was still deciding whether or not to live with her father, which made her mother curse “that good-for-nothing father of yours who’d just as soon see us destitute.”

“If you need another place to live, you know the offer stands.” He flicked the ash off his cigarette, dragged on it, and exhaled. “But I mean more than who you want to live with. It’s time for you to think about your education.”

“If I go to college, I want a place where I can study just what I please.”

“You’ll have to knuckle under and take the required classes, too. But I see you thriving at whatever you set your mind to. You could be a professor. Or a great writer.”

“I can’t start now, so it doesn’t matter.” Of course, he hadn’t said a word about tuition money, nor did her mother have the means. And she didn’t intend to fritter her savings away on college. She wasn’t sure she ever again wanted to set foot on a college campus.

He asked, “Do you still want to write?”

“Of course, I do.”

He dropped his cigarette and toed it out. “Are you working on anything at present?”

“No.” Now he was prodding her to write? When he’d failed her after the publication of The Voyage of the Norman D—when she most needed his guidance? She stood and shuffled her feet around the gravelly ground. “Let’s start back.”

Barbara had taken this walk with Alice and the girls before; the path circled the knoll and reconnected with Lake Street. She headed for the south side of the slope. Then she saw it—lying in coiled stillness on the path, barely seven feet ahead. She froze and pointed. “Look. A rattler.”

“Oh, God,” her father said, reaching out and gripping her forearm.

Barbara tugged her arm free, motioned him back with her hand, and reversed her step. “We’ll go back the way we came.”

Her father turned around and backtracked. She followed, looking over her shoulder at the snake, assuring herself it stayed put.

“I’m sure glad you spotted it,” said her father. “We could’ve walked right up on the thing.”

“It was beautiful, wasn’t it? Beautiful and dangerous.” She relished the pounding of her heart, the satisfaction of danger evaded. She’d managed it just as she should have—and without harming the creature. It reminded her of the time during her childhood when she and her father encountered a snake—and how differently that’d turned out.

Now pride and certainty in her judgment mingled with a gloomy undercurrent: A vague dread had settled over her lately. Everyone kept talking about how uncertain times were, with so many people losing jobs and banks closing willy-nilly. The money from Millicent Brown had nearly dried up, and they’d not see another cent from her because she’d lost so much in the stock market crash. Her mother, too, went on about this new hardship and the dim prospects for employment on the East Coast. And she couldn’t escape the nagging misgivings about her own stalled writing career. Then there was the ugly battle playing out between her parents. It made her ache with loneliness and yearn for Ethan’s steadiness.

They reached the bottom of the hill, picked up the street, and fell into a matched step.

Her father broke the silence. “I know your mother wants you to help with the book about your journey. But that’s to be her book, isn’t it?”

Barbara nodded. She’d failed miserably on the Harper contract, and she feared she’d ruined her reputation with Harper for good. That’s why she’d finally consented to help her mother with her book about their West Indies journey.

Her father asked, “What about something from you and you only?”

She refused to tell him about Lost Island. He’d probably belittle the subject. Besides, she hadn’t written a word of it and couldn’t imagine how it should end. “I’m not ready to start anything new.”

“Well, if it’s writing you want, then you must get on with it. There’s material everywhere. My novel’s about a family of rugged seafarers in Maine. Got inspired by the jagged coast up there.”

One part of her wanted to ward off his questions, but the other wanted to tell him of her fears and struggles—how she wanted more than anything to be a writer of repute, not just a child writer, but that doubt dragged her down. “Yes,” she said, “I like the idea of writing about the sea.”

“Then write a fresh novel of the sea. Don’t let some Porlock stop you.”

Barbara shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “I still review Alice’s stories. And I write letters. That’s mostly what I do now.”

“You mean letters to Ethan? You know there’s no future with that boy.”

“That’s not your business.”

“Does he intend to go to college? Or is he going to sail forever?”

“He doesn’t need to go to college. I got an education by reading and studying, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

“It’s foolish to take up your time with him. You’ve got promise. I knew from the time you were in the cradle. Don’t throw yourself away on someone like him.”

“I’m not throwing myself away.