a-soft-place-to-fall - Rakhibul hasan (story books to read .TXT) 📗

debacle. It was clear as the nose on her face.

Jack beeped the horn.

"Gotta run," Susan said. She waved to Warren and Roberta and was gone. Claudia turned and started toward Roberta's car. Warren fell into step with her. "Hang on too tight and you'll lose her," he said quietly. "Don't make that mistake,

Claudia."

"If I want your opinion, Warren Bancroft, I'll ask for it. Until then, keep those bromides to yourself."

Roberta coughed delicately behind them and Claudia reined in her emotions. "It's late," Warren said. "I'll follow you two ladies home, if you'd like."

Roberta thought it was a charming idea. Claudia was deeply insulted but she kept her opinion to herself. The headlights of Warren's ridiculous old Jeep followed them over the bridge, up Main Street, around the curve, right into the driveway of the house Claudia had shared with her beloved husband.

"Don't forget to bring the deviled eggs tomorrow," Roberta said as Claudia climbed from the car. "And Peggy wants her Tupperware serving bowl back."

Labor Day was a major holiday for the various tradespeople and volunteer workers of Shelter Rock Cove. Shops on Main Street threw open their doors and sponsored contests and giveaways and generally said thanks to the town for supporting them all year long. The various volunteer groups – DAR, Lions Club, fire department, and the like – sponsored a giant picnic/barbecue on the town green that started at noon and ended after the fireworks display many hours later.

Claudia said goodnight and didn't so much as glance over her shoulder at Warren. Back straight, head held high, she walked up the curving driveway and let herself into her house. She closed the door behind her, turned the locks, then set the alarm. The children had insisted on the alarm system, even though it seemed foolish to Claudia. We worry, they had said to her. A woman living alone should have an alarm system.

They were always telling her something. Get an alarm system. Get a dog. Move to a condo . . . a retirement complex . . . a nursing home. That's the way it went. Once you gave in to the first request, your independence began to fall like a line of dominoes.

She leaned against the door for a moment and closed her eyes. She saw Annie and Kevin on their wedding day, so young and filled with hope. She saw them the day they moved into their first house, short on money but long on happiness and plans for the future. She saw them together year after year and something began to take shape, a darkness she'd never allowed to enter the picture before. The pinched look around Annie's mouth. The exhaustion in Kevin's eyes. The silences between them that spoke louder than words.

"I wish you were here with me, Johnny," she said aloud. But, as usual, he didn't answer.

#

Hall poured himself a tumbler of scotch and took it out onto the deck. He sat down on one of the three Adirondack chairs he'd had specially made and rested his feet on the railing. The Scotch was old and mellow and it burned its way smoothly down his throat.

Too bad it couldn't burn away the memory of Annie's face as she walked out of Cappy's hand in hand with the Boy from New York City.

He raised his glass high in a salute to bad timing.

He'd waited out her marriage and her widowhood. For two years he bided his time, sensitive to her feelings, aware of her family's expectations, waiting for the right moment to finally make his move, only to come in a day late. Hell, not even a day. Twelve hours. That was all. Twelve goddamn hours too late and all because some guy comes riding into town with the stink of newness all over him and that's all she wrote.

He'd never seen her look that way, not even on the day she married Kevin. She'd looked nervous on her wedding day, painfully young, alarmingly innocent. It was clear to everyone standing there that she was marrying the family as well as the man.

But the girl was long gone. She knew life didn't always play fair and that happy endings were found in books, not real life. She knew all of those things and more and yet she looked at that raggedy son-of-a-bitch like he'd hung the moon.

He took another gulp of scotch and waited for the fire to build in his gut.

That nagging memory still tugged at him. A sense of familiarity he couldn't define. He knew this Sam Butler from somewhere but he couldn't seem to place him. The guy looked like he worked the docks but there was no denying the fierce intelligence burning in his eyes. There was something about the man that made you want to take a step backward to put some space between you.

It hadn't been that way with Kevin Galloway. Kevin had greeted the world with open arms, even as he shielded his obsession from the eyes of the town. This new guy had none of Kevin's heft and presence. None of his poetry. Kevin was as flawed as they come but it had never been hard to understand what Annie saw in him.

Sam Butler was from New York. You could hear it in his voice. That odd little glottal stop that pegged some New Yorkers as incontrovertibly as a strand of DNA. But it was more than that. Was it possible he'd met Butler somewhere along the way, at a party maybe or some other social gathering? He couldn't imagine the circumstances where their worlds would intersect but he'd long ago learned that anything was possible. After all, it had already happened.

#

"Don't say it," Susan warned, as she and Jack got ready for bed. "If you value our marriage, you won't say one single word."

Jack tossed the damp towel into the hamper and grinned at his wife. "Told you so." She glanced around for something moderately lethal to heave in his direction but

everything in the tiny bathroom was either bolted down or too grungy to consider. "We don't really know anything," she said, slipping her cotton nightgown over her head. "So what if she left with him. All she was doing was trying to slip away before Hall asked her out again." She padded into their bedroom with her husband close behind. "You can't blame her for taking the first escape route that presented itself."

Jack pulled off the comforter and tossed it on the slipper chair near the window. "You don't really believe that crap, do you?"

She sank down onto the bed. "No," she said miserably. "I don't."

The mattress dipped as he sat down next to her. "What's the real problem here, Susie? It isn't Annie at all, is it."

"You're a grease monkey," she said, sniffling back her tears. "You're not supposed to be so perceptive."

"So what is it," he persisted. "You jealous?"

"I don't get it," she said. "You couldn't find your socks if they stood up and saluted at you in the morning, but you always know exactly what's wrong with me."

"I don't love my socks."

She couldn't withhold a smile. "You old sweet talker. You always could charm me with poetry."

He whispered something in her ear that did more than charm her. "Maybe," she said. "I'll think about it."

"Might be fun."

"Might be." She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. "She looked so happy," she whispered. "They looked so much in love."

"We're in love." "Not like that."

"No," he said, "not like that. We were like that twenty years ago. Now we're like this."

"I miss the way we used to be." "So do I."

She looked up at him. "You do?"

"With work and the kids and everything else –" He shook his head. "Sometimes I feel like I'm losing you in the crowd."

"Yes! That's it, that's exactly the way I feel, like I'm calling your name in a crowd and you just don't seem to hear me."

"I hear you now, Susie. I'm right here next to you and I hear you."

"What if he hurts her," she whispered as they lay down on the bed they'd shared for so long. "She doesn't have any idea what it's like out there."

"Was it so good with Kevin?" Susan froze. "What did you say?"

"I loved him, Suz, but your brother wasn't perfect." "Meaning what?"

Jack sighed. "Forget I said anything."

"No," she said, suddenly angry. "I won't forget. Tell me what you're talking about." "His gambling."

She made a face. "That was never a real problem."

"Open your eyes, Suz. Take a look at Annie. She didn't sell the big house because she was tired of the view. She sold it because he left her with nothing."

"You don't know that." "I know what I see."

"She wanted to start fresh," Susan said, trying to ignore the hollow ringing of her words. "She was rattling around in that big old barn all by herself."

The expression on Jack's face was so sad – and so knowing – that it brought her up short.

"I think you're wrong," she said as the fight drained out of her. "Kevin was a wonderful husband. They were the happiest couple I've ever seen. Nobody will ever make her as happy as Kevin made her."

But how happy was that really? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't come up with examples to prove her thesis, not unless she went back fifteen years or more. Annie threw herself into making the flower shop a success and the hours she worked became a source of debate within the family. Of course everyone knew teachers didn't make huge salaries, even if Kevin was the most gifted English teacher the town had ever seen. He worked long hours too, meeting with parents and children after the school day ended, giving workshops and taking classes on the weekends. The wonder was that he and Annie ever saw each other at all. How many family gatherings had they had to decline because Kevin was out of town or Annie was too swamped with work to break away? After a while everyone had lost count. Invitations to the big old Victorian house dwindled until they became once or twice yearly occasions.

Was that happiness? She had no answer to that question.

"We can't stop her," he said, stroking her hair. "Annie deserves some happiness and she won't find it if she doesn't take a few chances."

He was right. She knew he was right. But the thought of Annie out there somewhere with a man who wasn't family sent a chill of foreboding through Susan and not even Jack's warm kisses could make it go away.

#

Warren sat in his library with a glass of brandy in his hand and poor old Max asleep at his feet. It was a few minutes after midnight and unless he missed his guess Max would be spending the night.

"You can sleep at the foot of the bed," he told the dog, "and Nancy will make you bacon and eggs for breakfast."

The yellow Lab looked up at him with mournful eyes.

"Don't worry," Warren said, reaching down to pet the old guy on the scruff of his neck. "He hasn't abandoned you." That was one thing Sam Butler never did, even if the boy didn't quite believe it himself yet.

He heard himself and started to laugh. Now did that beat all? There he was, the man who was on the cover of last month's Forbes, trying to explain love to a dog who drank water from the toilet bowl. Hell, he had himself a nerve trying to explain love to anybody since he knew so damn little about it. He knew love complicated matters. He knew that when it went wrong it made a man's life a living hell.

And he also knew that without it, nothing much else mattered.

Were Sam and Annie in love? He