Last Run Read Online Free PDF

hand instead. His grip was firm enough, but his skin felt cold, and he did not, as usual, meet her eyes,
and she realized as Woody trotted up to greet him that the boy was using the dog as an excuse to look away from her.
    Afraid, perhaps, she felt, of what she might see in his face.
    Grace waved at Annie, just driving away, and closed the front door.
    ‘Deck?’ She knew Gregory had always felt more peaceful by the water.
    ‘Sure,’ he said.
    His voice had broken since the last time she’d seen him professionally.
    A young man now.
    ‘Something to drink?’ she offered.
    He shook his head.
    They left Woody inside, in the air-conditioning, and made themselves comfortable out on the deck on brightly cushioned cane chairs.
    ‘Still no Sunfish,’ Gregory said, after a moment.
    ‘No.’ Grace smiled. ‘Not sure I’d squeeze into one right now.’
    ‘When’s your baby due, doc?’ he asked.
    ‘A few months to go,’ she said.
    She had mentioned to him once, in their early days of therapy, that she’d often had a fancy for one of those tiny sailboats, offering it to Gregory as evidence of at least one pleasure in
common. She hadn’t told him about a man named Hayman, who had once taken her on a terrifying sailboat ride, more than taking the edge off her appetite for the open seas, but Grace was aware
that the troubled boy loved spending time out on the
Pegasus
, the Catalina yacht his parents kept moored outside their home on Dumfoundling Bay.
    Common ground between therapist and patient by no means a requirement, but with some more reticent youngsters, Grace had found over the years that it could sometimes assist the opening up of
communication.
    ‘Have you guys taken the
Pegasus
out much this summer?’ she asked now.
    ‘Some,’ Gregory answered.
    He was a good-looking boy, brown-haired with long-lashed eyes and a wide, sensitive mouth. Grace had witnessed the gradual return of those looks – lost for a time to the ravages of drugs
– and had shared the Hoffmans’ tentative relief as the joint forces of rehab, counselling and love had won that battle and returned the nice, sweet-faced kid to his bewildered parents
and baby sister, Janie.
    The battle but not the war, apparently.
    She saw what Annie had meant. There was a haunted look in Gregory’s eyes that Grace found quite alarming, that made her wonder if Gregory might not have graduated to something far more
mind-altering than marijuana or cocaine.
    ‘Your mom is worried about you,’ she said.
    Up front, the way she preferred it. Beginning again.
    ‘I know,’ Gregory said.
    Grace waited, watched his face turn away, the eyes appearing to gaze out over the water, but not really seeing, she thought.
    ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said.
    ‘Take your time,’ Grace said. ‘You know the score.’
    ‘I did,’ Gregory said. ‘This isn’t the same.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I don’t want to be rude, doc’ He was still facing the water.
    ‘I don’t take offence, Greg. You know that.’
    ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But like I said, this is different.’
    Grace waited again. ‘Why is it different, Greg?’
    He shook his head. ‘I’m tired.’
    ‘I can see that,’ Grace said. ‘Not sleeping?’
    Gregory looked at her for a second. ‘She told you about the dreams.’
    ‘Your mother told me you’ve been waking up very upset.’
    He exhaled briefly, a sound that might have been cynical or impatient or despairing, hard to be sure which.
    ‘It might help if you tell me,’ Grace said.
    ‘I can’t,’ Gregory said.
    She said nothing, sat still, felt the baby move, controlled the impulse to lay a hand over her abdomen, wanting nothing to disturb the pause.
    ‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m back on dope?’ he asked.
    ‘Are you?’
    He shrugged.
    In the silence, the baby moved again, pressing on her bladder.
    Not now
, Grace told herself and her son.
    ‘I don’t want to be here,’ Gregory said.
    ‘OK,’ Grace said.
    The baby