A Family Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
sound would imbed itself in her memory, and nothing, no amount of
denial, or drugs or therapy would erase it. But still, she had to
know.
    She’d spent hours trying to imagine the
confrontation. Faces, inflections in speech, odd little nuances,
even something as unassuming as educational background or
socio-economic condition could help determine what should be said,
and how. Yet all she knew about this woman was her name.
    Hadn’t her father ever thought about what
might happen if his family found out? Had he been so consumed with
love, desire, lust, that it hadn’t occurred to him or if it had,
the longing was so overpowering that he discarded the needs of his
family? She hated this faceless woman. As for her father, his lies
had turned her whole life on its axis and it would take time to
sort out truth from lie, love from hate.
    She stopped only twice during the trip; once
to refuel and grab a bag of pretzels and a Coke, and the second
time to use the restroom and buy a large, black coffee. Hours and
miles fell behind her in a white haze of nameless highway, her
brain consumed with her destination, filled with both anxiety and
dread. By early afternoon she’d reached the New York state line and
when dusk seeped down from the mountains, she knew she was in the
Catskills. The cabin was located on the outskirts, in Tristan, a
tiny dot on the map, smaller than the head of a straight pin, and
if she’d calculated correctly, about eighty miles from Magdalena,
Lily Desantro’s home.
    The road that led to the cabin was little
more than a single lane, covered with snow, and dipping off at the
edges, no guard rails or posts to guide or protect. What if she
slid off to the right, over the embankment, rolled the car? No one
would find her for days. She gripped the wheel tighter, inched
toward the middle of the road. There were trees all around, thick,
ominous, pushing her along the slick road, forcing the BMW through
a vortex of dense brush and overhang.
    She slowed to a crawl. The snow had started
again, huge, wet splotches beating the windshield. Christine
rounded another bend, spotted a mailbox off to the right draped in
white. The driveway lay tucked between a copse of evergreen and she
passed by it, then had to back up to find the turn off. The cabin
stood straight ahead, a small log structure surrounded by evergreen
and thick-waisted, naked trees whose coverings had long since
fallen. Snow lay in pure, scalloped drifts along the perimeter of
the cabin, edging its way to the front door.
    Christine shifted the car into park, fished
the key to the cabin from her coat pocket, and stepped outside. She
left the headlights on to carve a path through the gray of dusk
that enveloped her.
    She fumbled with the key, forced it into the
lock; the door opened with a slight push then a grudging creak. She
stepped inside, reached for a light, and flipped it on. There was a
couch done in blue and cream plaid, a chair, navy blue, a rocker,
matching blue and cream plaid cushion, worn and slightly faded, and
a small coffee table. A single hurricane lamp rested on the coffee
table alongside a ceramic ashtray. This would be the living room.
The kitchen snaked to the right, a tiny oblong packed along the
edges with a gas stove, a white refrigerator, a stainless steel
sink and countertop, a single wicker chair, and a set of four TV
trays with sailboats on the front.
    There were two doors past the short half
hallway that butted up to the kitchen. She opened one, flipped on
the light and found a double faucet sink, dingy white with rust
around the silver fixtures, a white commode and a porcelain tub
with claw feet and a plug dangling on a chain that had been wrapped
around the ‘cold’ fixture. A cracked bar of soap sat in a white
plastic tray. No toothbrush, no shaving cream, no sign that anyone
had been here a week ago.
    She turned away and opened the door on the
opposite end of the hall. This was the bedroom. She stood in the
semidarkness,