In Her Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

trembles like an anxious leaf. Pull yourself together, she snaps. Stop acting crazy!
    She takes another deep breath and returns to the table.
    “Sorry about that, weird kink in my foot. On my butt too much today, I guess.” She sits down, careful to make it look as if nothing happened.
    “You sure you’re okay?” Grandpa asks. Grandma remains focused on her plate, eating one precisely cut morsel at a time.
    “Absolutely.” Claire plunges her fork into her green beans, using her peripheral vision as her guide. The fear is usually greater than the consequence , she tells herself like she tells her clients. If she just eats, her fears will dissipate.
    “How was work today?” Grandpa asks. “How are them patients of yours?”
    “Work was good.” She decides against mentioning the party, and especially the cake. “Patients are doing well. I’ll be starting with a couple of new ones soon.”
    “That’s good. Smart that the clinic uses you. They don’t know how lucky they are.”
    Grandma nods toward the uneaten pork roast. “Don’t you like it?”
    “I do, it’s…amazing.” She hates lying. She feels Grandma’s eyes as she lifts a forkful to her mouth. Her nostrils seem to close involuntarily; her teeth clench.
    “Whatever happened with that friend of yours?” Grandpa asks. “What’s his name? Hal?”
    “Hank,” she says. Breathe, breathe!
    “Oh yeah, Hank. What’s he do again?”
    Grandpa’s chewing seems amplified—saliva sloshing like ocean waves, his tongue flopping around between bites. “He’s a…almost a doctor.”
    Grandma still watches her. Claire places the pork in her mouth and moves it to the inside of her cheek, trying not to taste it.
    “A doctor, eh? Would be nice to have one a those in the family,” Grandpa says.
    As he reaches for his water glass Claire tries to spit the pork into her napkin. Instead, it catches in her teeth and falls to the back of her mouth.
    Her throat tightens like a flytrap. She leans forward and cups her hands over her mouth.
    “Claire-belle? What’s wrong?” Grandpa asks.
    She darts from the table, knocking her knee against the oak stand that held her great-grandmother’s vase. It falls to the floor, shattering.
    As she runs through the backyard fruit trees, the chilled air sends her tears streaming all over her face. Tree branches prick her skin. Dried leaves crunch beneath her feet like fragile skeletons. She runs and runs as though fleeing from something—or someone.
    The dizziness intensifies until she’s overwhelmed. Black spots fill her vision. She reaches for a tree for balance, but it’s too late. Her world goes black.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    She continues her pretend-sleep, wondering what he’s up to. After another round with the blood machines, several hours if her estimation is right, he detached her and has remained at his desk, fixated on...something. His silence peaks her nerves. What she’d give for some sound—television, anything to keep her company. He’s not even playing his wretched music...
    She observes him at his desk, noting his attire—slacks, a dress shirt. Is he leaving for work? The notion should please her; she misses the days he departed often. But the multiple changes alarm her—his clothes, his extreme focus while he works at his desk, the fact that it must be daytime, yet he hasn’t forced her to eat. For years he’s forced food in her—without exception. She doesn’t want the calories, of course, but her mouth is dry like paper. Will she only receive blood from now on? Maybe that’s why he’s dressed for work; blood is in plentiful supply at the hospital. And what is he working on so diligently? Perhaps it’s all part of her treatment. In all the time she’s spent studying weight control, she now wishes she’d learned something about kidneys.
    To fill the time, she contemplates new strategies. She doesn’t have the same freedom she had when he allowed her upstairs, but she has something new: his