Marisa de los Santos - Belong to Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

friend Elizabeth’s husband, and he did look like hell, although there was nothing remarkable about this fact. For months, ever since Elizabeth’s battle with cancer had begun, “like hell” had been Tom Donahue’s standard look.
    Piper smiled up at Kyle. “Give Bob and Betsy my best? Tell them we’ll do dinner soon. Okay? We’ll throw something on the grill. They’re over near the early reader books.” She gave him a tiny push in the proper direction. “Okay?”
    Kyle took a long sip of his wine, and his eyes did the squinting thing they did when he was thinking of something else. Fleetingly, it occurred to Piper that Kyle’s eyes had been doing the squinting thing a lot lately. If she didn’t know him better, if she’d been a different kind of wife, she might suspect that he was harboring secrets. The thought of Kyle with a secret life was so preposterous that it made Piper smile. Kyle noticed the smile, smiled back, and said, “Okay, honey. Will do.”
    Piper made her way over to Tom, who still stood just inside the library entrance, his arms hanging at his sides, his shoulders slightly hunched, and Piper couldn’t stand it that he stood that way, couldn’t stand the way he drew in breath after deep breath, as though he were preparing to swim the English Channel instead of to step into an ordinary room full of people he knew.
    For God’s sake, thought Piper, would you pull yourself together?
    All the women Piper knew agreed that Tom Donahue was a good-looking guy. He had a slightly-too-long, angular face—a face that would look at home under a cowboy hat in an old Western—offset by big, winsome blue eyes, baby’s eyes almost, with long, thick lashes. But when Elizabeth got sick—as soon as she was diagnosed, Piper thought bitterly, on the way home in the goddamn car—he’d begun to lose weight, to appear almost monstrously gaunt and hollow-eyed and lost. Defeated, Piper thought. Walking around the house with defeat written all over him, while his wife fought the battle of her life, a battle that wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
    “Tom touches me like I’m made of glass,” Elizabeth had told her a few weeks ago.
    Piper had followed Elizabeth’s gaze out her kitchen window to the backyard, where the sprinkler swept its great fan of water back and forth with languorous grace. Like a dancer, thought Piper, like a manta ray. The sprinkler’s beauty made her want to cry.
    She’d looked at Elizabeth, wondering if she’d noticed the sprinkler, too. But Elizabeth was running a finger around the rim of her teacup. “Not just like I’m fragile, but like I’m made of something besides flesh and blood. Like I’ve already turned into something else.” Elizabeth paused. “Although he’s probably not thinking that. Probably it’s just the way he makes me feel.”
    Suddenly, Piper had felt so angry she couldn’t speak. Silently, she’d swooped up their two cups of the vomit-tasting, curative tea some college friend had sent Elizabeth, strode over to the sink, and emptied them with vigor, the green-brown splashes ugly and dramatic against the white porcelain. Piper had stared into the sink for a long moment, then had turned around, smiled at Elizabeth, and said brightly, “Someone had to put that tea out of our misery.”
    When she saw Tom standing in the school library like a tired, frightened old man, the anger flared again, fresh and hot, but Piper felt people watching. She was aware of all those eyes full of sympathy for Tom. Poor bastard, thought the men. Poor sweet man, thought the women. Piper could almost hear the words.
    “Elizabeth’s the one who’s sick,” she wanted to tell them all, “and she’s getting better.” She wanted to scream it, but instead she gave Tom a reassuring hug, then took his arm and led him into the room. Piper felt the eyes on her now, imagined the voices saying, “Piper’s been a rock for that family,” and despite her anger and her huge, genuine worry,