Cutwork Read Online Free PDF

advertising agency. But he sold it a few years ago.”
    Jill wrote that down. “Who is . . .” Jill went back a page. “Coy?”
    “Coy?” Her head swiveled toward the door to the entrance hall, as if the pause had been to query someone’s sudden appearance in the doorway. Finding it empty, she looked back at Jill, saw the notebook, and said, “Oh, Coy is our son. Coyne is his name, actually.” She spelled it. “He’s named after his grandfather. He’s not here right now.”
    “You have just two children?” asked Jill.
    “Yes, Coyne and Skye. You met Skye, she’s fifteen. Coy just turned twenty. They’re good children, we’re proud of them.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Funny what people found relevant at times like this. “Do you know where Coy is?”
    “Out looking for a job. He’s enrolled at Northwestern University. He got a scholarship, but it’s a small one, and he has to make up the rest himself now, since I can’t afford his tuition.” She saw incomprehension on Jill’s face and said, “Since the divorce. Rob quit working in advertising, you see, when he found out he was dying. But then he”—she lifted her hands and shoulders in a bewildered shrug—“didn’t. Die, I mean. The company was doing well, he sold it for cash and stock but the buyer went belly up six months later.” She shrugged again. “Rob always wanted to be an artist, he’d carved those things for years as a hobby. He was good at it, some of his work surprised me because it was so good, and when the doctor said six months, he got out of advertising as fast as he could and started growing his hair and he bought some expensive wood and started going to art fairs and galleries.
    “When all the money was gone, and he hadn’t died, I said, ‘What about the house, Coy’s college expenses, Skye’s tuition at Blake School?’ He said, ‘I guess I should’ve told you I’m not going to die of hepatitis after all. So you won’t be getting my insurance as soon as you thought, huh, Pam.’ As if it were a joke. And he said I’d better find a job, hadn’t I. Well, goodness, what kind of a job could I get? I haven’t worked outside our home for twenty years! So now we’re losing the house, and Coy has to work his way through college and Skye’s going to have to quit Blake and start all over making new friends with new teachers at a public school this fall . . .” There was the slightest emphasis on public, as if she were forced to say a rude word.
    She shrugged again and frowned. Then, as if replaying all she’d said, she looked up at Jill and said in mild amazement, “I’m sorry, this isn’t why you’re here, is it? To hear all our petty little problems.” But now she saw the pen moving, looked away again, and continued, “But really, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And now, Rob’s dead, and it’s really all on my shoulders. And he’s not dead the way he was supposed to go, but murdered, actually murdered. I don’t know what to say—but I just can’t seem to stop talking.”
    She made a fist and put it in front of her mouth, pressing hard, clearing her throat to give a reason for the gesture. Her other hand clenched hard onto her knee. “This is embarrassing, it’s as if I don’t know how to shut up!” She took the fist down, opening her hand to stare at it, as if she’d never seen a hand before. She pressed her lips very firmly together and swallowed, trying to gather herself.
    Jill said, “It’s all right, Mrs. McFey. You’ve had a very bad shock. Perhaps a drink, or a cup of tea, or coffee—?”
    “Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll ask Skye . . .” Her eyes widened. “Does she know?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Oh, dear, this is going to be hard, she loved her father very much.” She raised her voice. “Skye? Skye darling!”
    The shush of denim on a wooden floor was heard and the teen came into the room. She stopped short at the sight of her mother’s pale, set face. “Mommy, what’s