Other Men's Daughters Read Online Free PDF Page B

would get her out of it.
    Dr. Merriwether suffered in classic fashion; self-consciousness was no relief. He suffered, he knew the foolishness of suffering, he suffered more. “This is the fault of indolence. Acedia. Moping around, waiting for something to happen to me.”
    He changed into a Harvard sportshirt, did knee-bends, strummed the bookshelves, took down and put back tiny-print Victorian editions of Romantic poets, a medical school text ( The Etiology of Rheumatic Fever ), Aunt Agatha’s Greek lexicon. Cynthia. Kyneo , to kiss. Kynegetis , a huntress. Kynedon , doggily, greedily. Kynthos , mountain in Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Kyniske , bitch puppy. Kynopes , dog-eyed or shameless one. He picked up the Vermeer, sat on the sofa’s barest fang, and studied the interiors within which bemused women read letters, poured milk, weighed gold, adjusted bobbins, stared into golden window light. The radiance of their absorption absorbed him. Then, clip-clopping on the porch, a buzzer, and, dress changed, face charged with prospect, browned and golden, Cynthia.
    â€œI had to go back and change. I was so sticky.” A whirl inside, showing her dress, autumn leaves on a red base, high on her athlete’s legs—slightly knock-kneed—long, child-soft feet in wooden sandals.
    She had the record, could she play it for him, could she dance for him, would he think it silly?
    No, surely not. He’d find it charming. But where?
    â€œWhere’s the record player?”
    He had to think. His own music came from the FM stations. “In Priscilla’s room.” He led her upstairs.
    Into the family innards. Which was less easy for him. But he could not refuse what was so patently harmless. If slightly goofy. He looked away from the master bedroom, led her down the cluttered hall to Priscilla’s room. Cynthia gawked, assessed, admired cabinets of Merriwether trinkets, marine prints, old beds, Stonesifer’s abandoned communications board, Priscilla’s wooden-pegged armoire. “It’s so quaint. So sweet, so historic-hysteric.”
    He found the record player.
    Cynthia took over, adjusted the bar, the tone arm, the speed.
    To his surprise, the music was lovely, quiet, full of clear, steely plucks over which singers half-sighed a lyric about riding the wind. Cynthia spun, bent, shifted stiffly, intensely arid then in large sweeps. Subtle and serious. Too large for this small room, too much. Yet oddly beautiful, touching, personal. A dance of love.
    Too much for him. He was of a time that thought of the beautiful in a frame. Performance. A spectator had to be one of a crowd. Only Hitler sat alone in auditoriums. (Or did the television generation accept personal performance for personal declaration?)
    Then too, there was his own body. Not flabby, but stiff with gravity; he felt sluggish, slow. God knows he couldn’t dance like this. Had anyone ever danced like this here? Priscilla danced, so did Albie and Esmé, but theirs was home-dancing. Priscilla was lively, but she had more strength and beauty than grace; she was no dancer. Perhaps—and this brought the smile Cynthia wanted—Aunt Agatha had twirled here for Louden Stonesifer.
    â€œAm I silly?” Stopping.
    â€œIt’s beautiful. Thank you. Who are the artists?” after weighing “singers” and “musicians.”
    â€œThe Youngbloods. Aren’t they good?”
    â€œI hope they don’t feel out of place.”
    She’d stepped out of her sandals for the dance. Now she stepped not into them but into a pair of Priscilla’s moccasins. “Are these your daughter’s?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHer feet are fatter than mine.” Cynthia’s reading in women’s magazines had given her a physiologist’s index of proportions, the relation of feet to hands, of joint-space to body weight. Fat foot with thick waist, long fingers, long toes, long legs.