Falling for June: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

habit of borrowing newspapers so I could save enough dough just to buy my first place.
    “Well, sir,” I said, “everyone falls on hard times now and again. No shame in that.”
    “Yes,” he said, nodding. “I guess everyone does.” He was still looking at the floor, or maybe even through it, and his voice seemed to be as distant as his gaze. “But it’s not falling that’s hard,” he said, almost under his breath. “It’s holding on.”
    “Holding on, sir?” I asked, repeating him. “How do you mean?”
    He looked up at me and I saw that there was sadness in his eyes. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed like a deep and unreachable sadness, something altogether too heavy to be caused by losing just a home, even if it was the Center of the Universe. I wouldn’t find out until much later that day what his sadness was really about.
    “Sir, are you okay?” I finally asked.
    His head jerked slightly at my question, as if he had been jolted out of a trance. The melancholy seemed to drain from his eyes, replaced by confusion. It almost felt as if he’d forgotten that I was there and was surprised to see me, and I wondered if maybe he didn’t have a touch of dementia. He fished a hearing aid from his pocket and screwed it into his ear.
    “Should we move the chairs closer?” he asked. “I’m afraid I might be talking too quietly again.”
    “No, you’re talking fine,” I answered. Then I gestured to my own ears to make a joke and ease the tension. “I just have small ears is all.”
    “Your ears look fine to me,” he replied.
    But he was just being nice. I know because I really do have small ears. They run in my family.
    “But I will say you do have large hands,” he offered. “That’s my wife’s two-handed mug—she made it herself from Spanish clay—but it nearly disappears in your mitt.”
    I looked at the mug in my hand, really for the first time. It was glazed this beautiful deep blue that you could kind of see the brushstrokes in. Then, probably because I was looking at her mug, I was reminded of something he had written about his wife in his letter.
    “This is probably none of my business,” I said. “And I don’t mean to pry. But you mentioned in your letter that your wife jumped off of a building . . .”
    I said it kind of gently because I was aware it might be atouchy matter, but I was not at all prepared for him to laugh.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, opening the file in my lap to consult his letter. “I must have read your letter wrong. The handwriting was . . . well, I just must have read it wrong.”
    His laugh slowly worked its way into a nasty cough and he leaned forward in his chair, struggling to breathe. I attempted to rise to help him somehow, but I had my tea mug in one hand and the file open in my lap—plus, I had sunk so low into that damn chair cushion that I could hardly get out to save my own life. Fortunately, he held up his hand to halt me, anyway, taking deep, gulping breaths and waving me off.
    “Sit,” he said. “I’m fine. Just give me a moment.”
    I watched him with concern. It was quiet for a minute, the both of us just looking at one another and breathing. When he had finally caught his breath, he sighed and said, “Now, what were we talking about?” I didn’t answer right away. There was no way I was going to bring up his wife again. But then he must have remembered on his own because he said, “Oh, yes, June. My wonderful wife. She did jump off of a building all right. That’s how I met her. But that was nearly thirty years ago.”
    Now I was really confused, and once again, I opened the file in my lap. Did he just say thirty years ago? Then how had they both signed on to a loan in 2005? But then I remembered the wheelchair ramp, and I looked around at the uncluttered hallways, the wheel-worn hardwood floors. I panicked a little, thinking maybe his wife was crippled from the fall but was still around, that maybe she was there