Morning Read Online Free PDF

blue-and-white case that held the basal thermometer. She put it in her mouth, feeling the brief bite of cold glass under her tongue, then looked at the digital clock on the bedside clock radio. 7:01. She had to keep the thermometer in her mouth for exactly five minutes. The instructions that came with the thermometer specified that she use it before rising from bed, even before going to the bathroom, because any activity might raise her temperature a few crucial points and throw off her chart. So she lay still, obedient.
    Beside her, Steve groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. A few measures of music blared from the radio, interrupted by the disc jockey’s jovial patter.
    “The first caller to tell me the name of this song wins two free tickets to the Cape Movie Mart! Come on out there, you guys, this is an easy one.”
    Mouth pursed around the thermometer, Sara drifted on the sounds of the music, an easy-listening tribute to an artist with a difficult vision, a man too beautiful for this world. The DJ shouted cheerfully the instant the record stopped. He must do cocaine or at least drink eighty cups of coffee to be so energetic at this time of day , Sara thought.
    “Hello, dear!” the DJ said to his caller. “What’s your guess?”
    “ ‘Starry Starry Night’?” a young girl asked.
    “Sorry, hon, that’s close, but no cigar,” the DJ said.
    “Just a moment,” the girl cried. Muffled shrieks came over the phone. “I mean ‘ Vincent !’ ” she said.
    “That’s right!” the DJ shouted, as thrilled as if the girl had just unlocked the door to eternal life. “You’re absolutely right! ‘Vincent,’ by Don McLean. You’ve won twofree tickets to the movies, sweetheart. And I’ll tell you what. If you can tell me who the song’s about, I’ll throw in another ticket.”
    Sara smiled, thinking of sunflowers, impressionism, severed ears.
    “Vincent Price !” the girl replied triumphantly.
    Sara took the thermometer from her mouth as she exploded into laughter. She looked at the clock—it was all right, five minutes had passed. Switching off the radio, she retrieved the thermometer from the blankets and rose from bed.
    Tying her pink robe around her, sliding her feet into fleece-lined slippers, she hurried downstairs. By now she had a little ritual set up (and there was some comfort in rituals). She turned up the thermostat, started the coffee water perking, quickly used the bathroom, then took her chart from its special drawer in the kitchen and sat down at the table with it. Holding the thermometer to the light, as meticulous as a scientist with a test tube of radioactive particles, she squinted to steady her vision, and read the morning’s news.
    98.4. Well, that was just fine. She rose to get a cup of coffee, then sat back down to complete the rite.
    It was a beautiful morning, still warm, and foggy, the windows filled with a shimmering gentle silver light. From Brant Point the foghorn lowed slowly and long, like some great stupid animal lost in the mist. Sara smiled, liking this, liking the sense of something out there waiting in the unseen world. Spreading her chart before her on the table, she took a pencil and put a dot just where the date column met the temperature. She drew a line connecting yesterday’s dot with today’s. Her chart reminded her of a child’s dot-to-dot game, which, when finished, would reveal a picture of a duck or a Christmas tree. Would her chart, when finished, reveal signs of a completed embryo? Was this the ritual that would conjure up her child?
    Certainly it had to be better than Julia’s latest lunatic suggestion, which had come in last week’s mail.
To Promote Breeding
Let the party take of the syrup of stinking orach a spoonful night and morning. Then as follows: take three pints of good ale, boil in it the piths of three ox-backs, half a handful of clary, a handful of nepp (nepata), aquarter of a pound of dates stoned sliced and the pith taken out; a