Chosen Read Online Free PDF
Author: Chandra Hoffman
Child. A month after that, Chloe had found her dream house, and Dan sent her an e-mail with his attached flight itinerary from Madrid to Portland and four words: I’m nothing without you.
A LOT CAN CHANGE in two years, Chloe thinks, washing the leftovers off their plates. She figures if they are fighting tonight, they might as well fight about something that matters to her. She follows Dan into the living room.
“I’m only asking because I want to know what our plans are, if we’re going to get married, and how that fits, timewise, with—”
“So now we’re going to fight about setting a wedding date again? Woo-hoo! I can’t wait!” He turns on the TV, a period of punctuation; they’re done.
Chloe hates how they go at it in sound bites, thinks they could solve more if they just had it all out, but they are both haters of conflict.As usual, they will go to bed in silence, Chloe first, pretending she doesn’t hear him when he comes upstairs, and in the morning, it will be as though none of it happened.
Only tonight, Chloe falls asleep easily and is surprised to find Dan beside her when her cell phone rings at 2:17 a.m.
“Hi, this is the answering service. You have a birth mother named Mandy? She said she’s bleeding and needs a ride to the hospital.”
Chloe is in her closet now, pulling out a long-sleeved black T-shirt, a pair of brown velvet overalls. Mandy is more than a month from her due date; this is too early. From Portland Heights, it will take Chloe at least forty minutes to get to Mandy and Dwight’s apartment complex in Gresham. Her boss Judith lives ten minutes from the complex, more like eight at this time of night. But of course she can’t get out of bed and go get her—this is the difference between owning the agency and working there for eleven dollars an hour, no health benefits.
Chloe sighs and hangs up.
“Work?” Dan asks softly, and Chloe thinks from his tone that they are ready to make up.
“Yeah, a birth mother is bleeding, needs a ride to Good Sam.” She is poised to leave, her hand on the doorjamb. She tries again. “Earlier, I was only saying there are things involved in planning a wedding, things you have to book in advance.”
There is a long silence. From the hallway light shining on Dan’s perfect profile, she can see his eyes are closed, but it is a feigned sleep face. She continues, “Look, babe, you’re the one who mentioned getting married in the first place. I never brought it up, you asked me. All I need to know is when.”
“Honestly, Chlo”—he doesn’t open his eyes, addressing the ceiling—“the way you’re acting about this makes me sorry I asked.”
She leaves the room without answering, letting his own words echo in the silence of her wake. It is a little trick she learned from him.
4
In the Middle of the Night
PAUL
I t’s 3:23 a.m., and Paul Nova is driving himself to the emergency room with blood running down his arm. Goddamn cat. Eva had reminded him about the insulin shot when she got up to pee around two, and Henry, sleeping on the dryer in the basement, would rather she hadn’t remembered. The scratches on his forearm were nothing new (“You’ve got to wrap him in his blanket like I do!” Eva always said), but the bite along the back of his hand had split the skin open to his knuckles. Paul had tried to butterfly it one-handed; no luck.
Now at Good Samaritan’s ER, Paul sits in the empty waiting room with a battered two-year-old Car and Driver magazine. He looks up when the automatic door opens and a couple comes in. The guy is short, a Ducati cap riding high on his scowling forehead. He has his arm protectively around the back of a woman with stringy hair, her shirt hitching up over a tight, mounded stomach to expose her bulging belly button. Paul thinks how now that Eva is finally pregnant, he sees watermelon bellies everywhere. Like when they were shopping for a new car, suddenly every third vehicle on the road seemed to
A LOT CAN CHANGE in two years, Chloe thinks, washing the leftovers off their plates. She figures if they are fighting tonight, they might as well fight about something that matters to her. She follows Dan into the living room.
“I’m only asking because I want to know what our plans are, if we’re going to get married, and how that fits, timewise, with—”
“So now we’re going to fight about setting a wedding date again? Woo-hoo! I can’t wait!” He turns on the TV, a period of punctuation; they’re done.
Chloe hates how they go at it in sound bites, thinks they could solve more if they just had it all out, but they are both haters of conflict.As usual, they will go to bed in silence, Chloe first, pretending she doesn’t hear him when he comes upstairs, and in the morning, it will be as though none of it happened.
Only tonight, Chloe falls asleep easily and is surprised to find Dan beside her when her cell phone rings at 2:17 a.m.
“Hi, this is the answering service. You have a birth mother named Mandy? She said she’s bleeding and needs a ride to the hospital.”
Chloe is in her closet now, pulling out a long-sleeved black T-shirt, a pair of brown velvet overalls. Mandy is more than a month from her due date; this is too early. From Portland Heights, it will take Chloe at least forty minutes to get to Mandy and Dwight’s apartment complex in Gresham. Her boss Judith lives ten minutes from the complex, more like eight at this time of night. But of course she can’t get out of bed and go get her—this is the difference between owning the agency and working there for eleven dollars an hour, no health benefits.
Chloe sighs and hangs up.
“Work?” Dan asks softly, and Chloe thinks from his tone that they are ready to make up.
“Yeah, a birth mother is bleeding, needs a ride to Good Sam.” She is poised to leave, her hand on the doorjamb. She tries again. “Earlier, I was only saying there are things involved in planning a wedding, things you have to book in advance.”
There is a long silence. From the hallway light shining on Dan’s perfect profile, she can see his eyes are closed, but it is a feigned sleep face. She continues, “Look, babe, you’re the one who mentioned getting married in the first place. I never brought it up, you asked me. All I need to know is when.”
“Honestly, Chlo”—he doesn’t open his eyes, addressing the ceiling—“the way you’re acting about this makes me sorry I asked.”
She leaves the room without answering, letting his own words echo in the silence of her wake. It is a little trick she learned from him.
4
In the Middle of the Night
PAUL
I t’s 3:23 a.m., and Paul Nova is driving himself to the emergency room with blood running down his arm. Goddamn cat. Eva had reminded him about the insulin shot when she got up to pee around two, and Henry, sleeping on the dryer in the basement, would rather she hadn’t remembered. The scratches on his forearm were nothing new (“You’ve got to wrap him in his blanket like I do!” Eva always said), but the bite along the back of his hand had split the skin open to his knuckles. Paul had tried to butterfly it one-handed; no luck.
Now at Good Samaritan’s ER, Paul sits in the empty waiting room with a battered two-year-old Car and Driver magazine. He looks up when the automatic door opens and a couple comes in. The guy is short, a Ducati cap riding high on his scowling forehead. He has his arm protectively around the back of a woman with stringy hair, her shirt hitching up over a tight, mounded stomach to expose her bulging belly button. Paul thinks how now that Eva is finally pregnant, he sees watermelon bellies everywhere. Like when they were shopping for a new car, suddenly every third vehicle on the road seemed to
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