Nora and Liz Read Online Free PDF Page B

someone.” She fished in her bag again, but Liz stopped her.
    “No, that’s okay. I’d just as soon see to that myself.”
    Georgia nodded. “Maybe you could leave the water on after you leave, so it’ll be on when I come back with clients? People want to see the oddest things. In summer camps especially.” They were at the foot of the stairs now. “Is the phone working?” she asked. “I’ll just give my office a call if it is, tell them I’m on my way. I’ve got a showing in about half an hour. I forgot my cell phone, stupidly.”
    Without reason or warning, Liz felt overwhelmed with sadness. “It should be,” she managed to answer. “I called the phone company from New York and asked to have it turned on.” She went to the wall phone in the kitchen, lifted it, then handed it to Georgia. “Yes.”
    While Georgia was chirping into the phone, Liz went into the living room and leaned her head against the cold stone of the fireplace. “Mom,” she whispered. “Dad. How can I sell our Piney Haven?”

Chapter Five
    Noontime rain sluiced past the kitchen window and spattered on the sill, splashing drops against the glass. It was dark enough for a lamp, and Nora, reading poetry earlier—she was taking a correspondence course in writing it—had huddled close to the kerosene lamp, but had blown it out when she’d finished making lunch and before she’d helped her parents to the table. “Waste of good kerosene,” her father would have barked if he’d seen that she’d lit a lamp during the day; the light wasn’t worth his anger.
    Now his soup bowl was nearly empty; as soon as she’d seen the rain, Nora had thought clam chowder would be a good idea for lunch. That was one of Ralph’s favorites as long as it wasn’t tomato-based, and he’d slurped it eagerly, ignoring the milky liquid that dribbled down his chin, while Nora spooned chowder carefully into her mother’s mouth. Corinne seemed vague today, more so than usual, and although she often wanted to feed herself, today she sat slumped docilely in her wheelchair, both arms instead of just the one hanging uselessly by her side.
    “You’ve got dribbles,” Nora said to her father when he’d taken the last spoonful.
    Grunting, he dabbed ineffectively at his chin.
    “No, down more,” she told him, and then, laughing, took the napkin from him and mopped up the mess. Quickly finishing her own chowder, she took the bowls to the sink and removed the shopping list from its place on the bulletin board over the table.
    “Let me see that,” her father said.
    She handed it to him and he peered at it in the dim light while she pumped water into the bowls. Corinne began humming tunelessly.
    “What’re you singing, Mama?” Nora asked fondly, returning to the table. “‘Alice Blue Gown’ or ‘Down By the Old Mill Stream’?” Both were songs Nora knew Ralph had often sung to her; lately, Corinne had been reminiscing about the early days of their marriage. She and Ralph had both been in their forties when they’d met and married, but according to Corinne, Ralph had courted her as ardently as any twenty-year-old. He was still affectionate to her, inadvertently reminding Nora that he’d often been loving and fun to be with when she herself had been a small child, before whatever disappointment, fear, or anger that had changed him had taken over. Nora had always meant to ask her mother if she knew what had embittered him, but hadn’t wanted to open old wounds, if wounds there were. And now, of course, it was too late.
    “‘Millstream’,” Corinne mumbled with a crooked smile that sent a slow string of spittle down her chin.
    “‘Down by the old mill stream,’” Nora sang softly, carefully wiping her mother’s mouth, “‘where I first met you…’”
    “‘With your eyes of blue,’” Ralph joined in noisily, “‘dressed in gingham too…’” Here he reached out, smiling, toward his wife, whose hands, however, were still at her sides. He