A Fierce Radiance Read Online Free PDF Page A

lunchtime Ed plays court tennis with his brother Kip. Kip is a nickname for Christopher. Some people call him Chris or even Chip, which he hates, but we call him Kip.” Her voice grew stronger, as if these meaningless details grounded her. “They play at the Racquet and Tennis Club. Well, that’s the only place you can play court tennis. In Manhattan, I mean. When we’re in Tuxedo, they play at the club there. Anyway, it was just a slip. He stumbled when his shoes stuck to the floor. You know how that sometimes happens, when you’re racing from side to side and the floor is almost sticky from so much polishing?”
    Claire nodded, although she didn’t know, had never played court tennis or squash, had never been to the Racquet and Tennis Club on Park Avenue, or visited the protected enclave of Tuxedo Park northwest of the city. She felt an unexpected tinge of class resentment.
    “It wasn’t even a scrape. The skin was barely broken. That’s what Ed said, at least. He didn’t remember it when he was in the shower afterward.”
    Claire saw Emily, skipping joyfully outside their apartment building on West 111th Street. She tripped on an imperfection in the sidewalk, a small edge where one slab rose above the next by a quarter inch, no more. That quarter inch killed her. Emily broke her fall with her hands. She wasn’t the type of child to scream and cry, but she moaned as she pushed herself up. Both knees were scraped. Brush burns covered her palms. But her face never touched the pavement. Her face remained perfect and lovely to the end…the full cheeks, the wide brow, her skin so smooth and soft. The day was warm for June. Emily was wearing her favorite dress, the one with smocking on the bodice. The dress was yellow with a print of green and blue merry-go-round horses. Emily didn’t want to get blood on her dress. “Mommy,hold my dress,” she said as they went upstairs to wash and bandage the scrapes. Claire bunched the skirt and held it above Emily’s knees. Four days later Emily was dead.
    Patsy continued, oblivious to Claire’s anguish. “By Sunday his knee was a little swollen and stiff, but then we heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor and he put the stiffness out of his mind. It seemed so minor compared to everything else that was going on.”
    Patsy paused, remembering that day. Claire remembered, too. Each morning when she woke up and turned on the radio news, she felt as if she were hearing about Pearl Harbor for the first time. Each day, she felt a shock like the first shock. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the destruction of the nation’s fleet were incomprehensible. Pearl Harbor was the first topic when you telephoned a friend or passed an acquaintance on the street. Where were you, what were you doing when you heard the news, people asked obsessively, as if trying to grasp that it had actually happened. Claire and her son were at home. Claire was tormenting Charlie by making him try on all his clothes so they could donate what he’d outgrown to Greenwich House, the local settlement house, before Christmas. Claire had turned on the radio, to a concert by the New York Philharmonic. She’d been looking forward to it. In the middle of the program, an announcer delivered the news.
    Claire hadn’t waited for her boss to telephone her. Immediately she arranged for Charlie to spend the rest of the day around the corner with the family of his best friend, Ben. Charlie was thrilled, especially because they simply left the clothes in a pile on his bed. Claire went to the office. When she arrived, she learned that Mr. Luce had ordered the week’s issue remade, a tremendous expense because they’d already closed and were in production. Trying to get an overview, Mack Mahoney, the photo editor, had sent photographers around the city for shots of ordinary people and their reactions.
    When Mrs. Roosevelt spoke to the nation in the early evening, Claire was outside Grand Central Station. “I have a boy at