Rose Madder Read Online Free PDF

her, one which had a hideous plausibility . . . not to mention a kind of ironic balance. Suppose he had stopped at the ATM machine two blocks down the street from police headquarters, wanting ten or twenty bucks for lunch? Suppose he had decided, after ascertaining that the card wasn’t in his wallet, to come home and get it?
    Get hold of yourself. That isn’t going to happen. Nothing like that is going to happen.
    A car turned onto Westmoreland half a block down. It was red, and what a coincidence that was, because they had a red car . . . or he did; the car was no more hers than the ATM card was, or the money it could access. Their red car was anew Sentra, and—coincidence upon coincidence!—wasn’t this car now coming toward her a red Sentra?
    No, it’s a Honda!
    Except it wasn’t a Honda, that was just what she wanted to believe. It was a Sentra, a brand-new red Sentra. His red Sentra. Her worst nightmare had come true at almost the very moment she had thought of it.
    For a moment her kidneys were incredibly heavy, incredibly painful, incredibly full, and she was sure she was going to wet her pants. Had she really thought she could get away from him? She must have been insane.
    Too late to worry about that now, Practical-Sensible told her. Its dithery hysteria was gone; now it was the only part of her mind which still seemed capable of thought, and it spoke in the cold, calculating tones of a creature that puts survival ahead of everything else. You just better think what it is you’re going to say to him when he pulls over and asks you what you’re doing out here. And you better make it good. You know how quick he is, and how much he sees.
    â€œThe flowers,” she muttered. “I came out to take a little walk and see whose flowers were out, that’s all.” She had stopped with her thighs pressed tightly together, trying to keep the dam from breaking. Would he believe it? She didn’t know, but it would have to do. She couldn’t think of anything else. “I was just going to walk down to the corner of St. Mark’s Avenue and then come back to wash the—”
    She broke off, watching with wide, unbelieving eyes as the car—a Honda after all, not new, and really closer to orange than red—rolled slowly past her. The woman behind the wheel gave her a curious glance, and the woman on the sidewalk thought, It if had been him, no story would have done, no matter how plausible—he would have seen the truth all over your face, underlined and lit in neon. Now are you ready to go back? To see sense and go back?
    She couldn’t. Her overwhelming need to urinate had passed, but her bladder still felt heavy and overloaded, her kidneys were still throbbing, her legs were shaky, and her heart was pounding so violently in her chest that it frightened her. She would never be able to walk back up the hill, even though the grade was very mild.
    Yes, you can. You know you can. You’ve done harder things than that in your marriage and survived them.
    Okay—maybe she could climb back up the hill, but nowanother idea occurred to her. Sometimes he called. Five or six times a month, usually, but sometimes more often than that. Just hi, how are you, do you want me to bring home a carton of Half-n-Half or a pint of ice cream, okay, bye. Only she felt nothing solicitous in these calls, no sense of caring. He was checking up on her, that was all, and if she didn’t answer the telephone, it just rang. They had no answering machine. She had asked him once if getting one might not be a good idea. He had given her a not entirely unfriendly poke and told her to wise up. You’re the answering machine, he’d said.
    What if he called and she wasn’t there to answer?
    He’ll think I went marketing early, that’s all.
    But he wouldn’t. That was the thing. The floors this morning; the market this afternoon. That was the way