Phoenix (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF

slap. It doesn’t come. Clear, speaking directly into the receiver, Ted says, “What can I say? Our kid can really hold a grudge.”
    Rachel’s thrilled. The last thing she wants her daughter to be is a sop like Ted, but she keeps those words in her mouth. That’s Monday’s phone call, done.
    * * *
    Belinda Carlisle had been Ted’s cat since she was a kitten. She was an old cat when they’d listed her on various websites for adoption. Old and gassy. Only medical researchers might bother. When euthanasia had loomed as their best option, Ted called Rachel into the kitchen and showed her the cat’s fifty-pound bag of kibble. It was still over half full. He said, “Just give me this long to find her a new family.”
    To Rachel this had seemed like a good compromise. Every day meant two scoops out of the kibble. The bag became an hourglass counting down their final days with Belinda. After two weeks, Rachel was no longer so sure. The food bag was still half full. In fact, it seemed a little heavier than it had been when she’d first made her bargain. She suspected Ted was smuggling kibble from another source. Perhaps he kept a secret bag stashed in his car or somewhere in the garage and he was using scoops of that to replenish the kitchen bag. To test her theory, she began to dole out double helpings for the cat’s meals. Rachel told herself she was giving the cat a treat, indulging it instead of hurrying it toward its grave.
    The increased rations had barely fit in the cat’s bowl, but Belinda ate it all. She was getting fat, but she wasn’t getting any closer to being gone. Like the parable of the loaves and fishes or that lamp in the Temple of David, the big bag of kibble was always half full.
    * * *
    Tuesday’s call from Orlando doesn’t go any better. Each night, she and Ted make small accountings to each other. He’s raked the first fall of leaves. She’s implemented the initial on-site catalysts for satellite microwave transmission. He’s found a grocer that carries the cheese she likes so much. Rachel reports that she’s re-sequenced the protocol script for the pre-systems recharge matrix. She says Orlando is a terrible place to find oneself without children.
    When she stops speaking, there’s a stretch of silence, as if Ted’s paying attention to something else. She listens for the sound of him keyboarding, doing e-mails while she talks. Finally Ted speaks. He says, “What’s going on there?”
    He means the sounds. The guests in the next room are screwing, again. Actually, they’ve never stopped, and their constant moaning and shrill cries have disappeared to Rachel’s ears. The sounds have droned on so long, they must be a pornographic film. No one was ever that much in love. It makes her furious to imagine Ted has been listening to strangers humping instead of the progress she’s made.
    While a sapphire hovers on television, Ted’s voice says, “Take the phone, April. Tell Mommy goodnight.”
    To hear more, Rachel tries to subtract the sound of the freeway outside. She tunes out the hum of the minibar and the endearments grunted from beyond the wall. She hasn’t taken a drink since some Christmas eggnog three years ago, but now Rachel goes to the minibar and surveys the racks of little glass bottles, each priced higher than the diamond pendant on television. A dwindling countdown shows that there are fewer than five thousand of these pendants left. For the price of pearl earrings, Rachel mixes herself a gin and tonic and chugs it down.
    Over the phone Rachel hears Ted’s voice. Muffled in the background, he whines, begging, “Tell Mommy about the turtles you liked at the zoo.” Nothing follows. Rachel feels a respect for her daughter that she’s never felt for her husband. For dinner, she tears open a minibar bag of plain M&M’s that costs more than a shopping-channel engagement set. For every bag of potato chips or candy bar she eats, another will appear to replace it as if by