Cold Spring Harbor Read Online Free PDF

car and just let it be destroyed, without any regrets.”
    “Some things you do are worth regretting,” he told her; “others not.” He could almost never express his thoughts as neatly as that, and it pleased him until he remembered it was something he’d heard his father say.
    Phil Drake had looked openly astonished that his sister could say “I think you’re wonderful” to a man she’d scarcely met. And Rachel seemed to know how her brother felt, because the two of them were now engaged in a little battle of looks, both of them pink in the face, each fearfully daring the other to make some punishing remark. They were clearly accustomed to a heavy dependence on each other, this brother and sister, and that seemed to confirm Evan’s first impression of the Drakes: none of them would ever be strong.
    But the girl was growing up fast. If you could get her away from this crappy little place, if you could bring her out into the nourishing sunlight and build her up and have her and keep her long enough, she might easily turn into awoman who’d be worth your blood, worth your life, worth everything. And if nothing else, she would be worth the try.
    With Evan’s help in the dialling, Charles called the eye clinic and cancelled his appointment; then he made a collect call to Cold Spring Harbor and told his wife they’d be a little late. And he’d scarcely turned away from the phone before still another heavy, brimming glass was pressed into his hand. This woman didn’t know the meaning of surrender.
    “… Well, hasn’t this been delightful?” she asked an hour later, when they were able to begin inching toward the door at last. “Oh, and wasn’t it a funny way to meet? Just imagine: if your car hadn’t broken down exactly where it did, and if you hadn’t happened to ring our bell, out of all the other bells …”
    Like shy conspirators, Evan and Rachel hung back a little from the others gathering at the doorway.
    “Can I call you sometime?” he asked her very quietly, while Phil watched both of them with a partly lifted upper lip.
    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’d like that.”
    And no sooner had the door closed on their visitors than Rachel Drake began to feel like an exceptionally pretty girl. She felt almost like a girl in the movies, because meeting Evan Shepard had given her the opening episode of a movie she could play over and over in her mind whenever she felt like it. Her saying “I think you’re wonderful” was the line that would let the audience know how bold a girl she could be, for all her shyness, and Evan’s saying “Can I call you sometime?” was the one that would always mean their romance had now begun. It didn’t even matter that all further episodes would have to wait until after his phone call, because this wasn’t the kind of movie you’d want to rush through anyway.
    Oh, but what if he didn’t call? Every time she askedherself that heart-stopping question she’d feel desolate for a while, but those spells didn’t last very long. Soon her lungs would go back to work and she’d feel blood in her veins again, because she knew he would call; she was certain of it.
    “Boy,” her brother said. “Boy, Rachel, if this guy Evan doesn’t call you up I guess you’ll probably commit suicide, huh?”
    “Oh, don’t be boring,” she told him.
    “That sounded to me like a very silly thing to say, Philly,” their mother said from across the room.
    “Well, okay, I’m sorry,” Phil said, and to make sure they’d both heard him he said it again: “I’m sorry.”
    Apologies were as common as blame in this small, fatherless family, and forgiveness was always in the air. Affection mattered. Until Phil was nearly eleven they had addressed one another in a ritualized baby talk that no outsider could probably have followed, and even now they often said “I love you.” If any two of them were more than an hour late in getting home, the one who was at home alone and waiting