For Love of Audrey Rose Read Online Free PDF

belonged to a weary, broken man.
    Janice took off her coat, then her hat.
    Bill’s shadow, a bulk of darkness, followed her as she moved in the room.
    “Is it over?” he whispered hoarsely.
    “Yes.”
    Overhead, the paintings on the ceiling were now lost in gloom, the dancers and dressed monkeys stilled, erased in twilight’s shade ahead.
    “She will be…cremated.”
    Bill bent over, crumpled, as though to avoid her. Janice now saw the shirt, once so white and freshly pressed, filthy, wrinkled, with streaks at the sides and shoulders.
    “I didn’t mean to, Janice…it was an accident….”
    Bill rose, raised his fist as though to strike it against the wall, but instead his hand opened up and he simply leaned, exhausted, against the wallpaper, head down, in the growing darkness.
    “I didn’t mean to,” he repeated. “It was… an accident….”
    Janice stepped farther into the room. Alone, she had had to bear the responsibility of dealing with the hospital, the court, and the representatives of the Mount Canaan Mausoleum in Valhalla, New York. She alone had signed the official papers. She alone had been at the autopsy. If it had not been for the support of the young Buddhists, and Scott Velie, and the Federicos, she would have collapsed.
    With pained scrutiny, she examined the husband who was a stranger to her. His hair was wet, disheveled. The trousers had stains of slush and tar and were torn at the knees. The broad, athletic shoulders twitched from nervousness and lack of sleep.
    “Janice!” he sobbed. “Is it possible?”
    Janice wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but the words of comfort that she knew would have sent him into a frenzy. Their minds had become incompatible. Their beings had separated. Janice looked away from Bill, as though to avoid the sight of a destroyed relationship.
    “I asked you a question,” he said coldly. Bill had turned. His eyes had an odd, burning quality, a shining feverish quality that frightened her. “Tell me, Janice,” he said.
    “You saw with your own eyes,” she said simply.
    “He bewitched her. Didn’t he? He bewitched all of us.”
    “No, he did not bewitch her.”
    Bill sighed wearily.
    “I went to the temple, Janice… but I couldn’t go in. I wanted to, but I couldn’t….” His voice trailed away into a sibilant, meaningless whisper.
    Janice wiped her eyes at the kitchen door.She found the light switch. The glow filled the dining area. Light sparkled from the china in the cabinet, off the Mexican vases. Bill stood immobile, in the center of the room.
    “Please, Janice, forgive me,” he pleaded.
    “Nobody’s blamed you, Bill.”
    “Janice, I’m begging you.”
    “In time. You’ll forgive me in time, too. But we need time.”
    Janice turned, more to escape the sight of Bill’s manic, sleep-deprived stare. When she turned on the kitchen light, the sudden glare shocked her. The physical reality of stainless-steel sinks, water faucets, calendar on the wall, and plates and cups, restored a sense of gravity.
    Janice found remnants of an old roast and cold potato salad. They ate in silence. She saw Bill’s hands tremble; the tears fell down from his face as she shoveled the food into his mouth.
    He took a deep breath, washed his face at the faucet. The harsh light bounced off the yellow kitchen walls as though to bleach them both of each and every facade, to reveal each of them utterly naked to the other, all softness and illusion destroyed in a terrible finality.
    Bill could not turn to face Janice. He tried, but a kind of magnetic pull prevented it. He wiped his face on a kitchen towel. When he finally spoke, the silence broke under the cruel, cold voice.
    “It was because I approved the test,” Bill croaked. “It was all my fault.”
    Time passed like a dark tide, scraping them, tossing them about in inchoate currents of bitter regrets and self-accusations. Janice remembered key words from the temple service, from Hoover’s crudely