Book of Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page A

or a balky blender. This endeared him to mothers, but infuriated his dates.
    The complex workings of kitchen appliances, however, couldn’t compare to his wife. Life with Antigone was like standing on a new bridge in the middle of a jungle. Sam felt its strength beneath him, but he also felt a sense of vertigo, the danger of falling, rushing toward the dark Amazon water with its flesh-eating fish and rib-crushing snakes. No one could aggravate him like Antigone (especially when she disappeared for hours), but no one understood him like she did either. Only Antigone, of all the people in his life, had said, “If you don’t
like
building bridges, don’t build bridges.”
    A wife who thumbed her nose at expectations was incomprehensible to his mother. Marian Thorne had always done the expected, first as the wife of a New Hampshire judge and now in a retirement community in Florida, where she organized bridge nights and kept a vigilant eye on her husband’s blood pressure.
    “You know,” Marian’s voice grated over the telephone lines, “some women just escape into a good book or their knitting. They don’t need to involve the interstate highway system.”
    Sam smiled to himself. Things never changed. His mother had been trying to run his life for thirty-five years. Before she could start in on some Florida property he should buy or some idea about expanding the menu at the O. Henry Café to include more reasonable food like steak, he said, “Mom, I’ve got big news.”
    “What?”
    “You’re going to be a grandmother.”
    For a moment, Marian was speechless, then he heard her shout for his father, “Jonas, we’re having a baby! We’re having a baby!” Marian got back on the phone. “When?”
    “In nine months, I guess,” Sam shrugged.
    “Men. Let’s see, it’s late April now, and give or take a few weeks, we could have a January baby. I hope this will be an easy pregnancy. I could tell you some horror stories.”
    “Please don’t.”
    “I’ll send Antigone some flowers,” Marian said.
    “I’m sure she’d like that.”
    “And some baby books. There’s so much to learn. Babies are not as easy as they look. They don’t come with an instruction manual, you know.”
    “I’ll read every word,” Sam promised, but his mother wasn’t listening.
    “I do hope Antigone doesn’t expose our grandchild to those wild beasts. . . .”

    I T WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. Sam sat alone in the sculpture graveyard behind the garage. He willed himself to meditate, to push all thought from his mind. He must be patient and calm. He knew how it would feel the moment he saw her—as if the world had been stopped and now started again. But, for now, he must wait.
    So, he closed his eyes and listened to his breathing and the highway and the voice of a barred owl somewhere. The owl’s call came out of the night, a series of
hoos
that sounded like: “Who cooks for you?” It was nearby, another being reassuring him that he wasn’t alone.
    And while he was deliberately not thinking about her, Antigone came home. He felt her kiss on his eyelids and smelled her and, without opening his eyes, reached for her. He was sitting in the grass, his back against a sculpture that had car doors for wings. “You look like an angel,” Antigone whispered, straddling his lap.
    He groaned and wrapped her in his arms, hugging her even tighter. “I was worried.”
    “I know. I’m sorry.” She kissed him again.
    Sam buried his face in her hair and inhaled the distinctive scent of her. A fragrance so familiar it even invaded his dreams at night. He thought of his child and how it would smell. New cars and babies, to Sam, were among the sweetest smells. He clamped his hand on the back of Antigone’s head and nuzzled his way to her lips. He felt himself melting into her like a bead of metal. A perfect joining. A fan of dimes.
    The kiss grew urgent. He pushed up her shirt with his hard, callused hands, sliding it up her soft slender sides,