Saint Maybe Read Online Free PDF Page B

scattered across the rug. Thomas and Agatha had the used, slightly tarnished look that even the best-tended children take on late in the day, and they pressed in upon him too closely, drilling him with questions. Was Ian ever going to play in the World Series? Did he know how to drive a car? A motorcycle? An airplane? Did he and Cicely go to many balls? (This last from Agatha, who had a big crush on Cicely.) Gradually he forgot that they had once been tongue-tied in his presence.
    They clung to the belief that Ian felt a special affection for Dulcimer, and they always made a point of displaying what she was wearing that day—one or another infant outfit handed down from Daphne. “Why, Miss Dulcimer!” Ian would say. “I do believe fuzzy pink flannel is your most becoming fabric.” They thought it was hilarious when he spoke to her directly. Then they might play Parcheesi—Ian’s idea; all the Bedloes loved any kind of game—or he read to them, his throat aching tightly with held-back yawns as he imitated various squeaky animals.
    Daphne was usually an invisible, slumbering presence, but if Lucy stayed out too long Ian might hear a tentative cry from the children’s room. He would find her lying in her crib, sucking her fist and watching the door so his first impression was always that considering stare. She was the only person he knew of with navy blue eyes. He would lift her awkwardly, in a bunch, pretending not to notice the dampness seeping around the legs of her terry-cloth pajamas. He would carry her to the kitchen and set a bottle in the electric warmer. Waiting for it to heat, he breathed her smell of warm urine and something vanilla-ish—maybe just her skin. Thomas tugged at one of her terry-cloth feet. “Hey there, Daffy. Daffy-doo.” Daphne squirmed and murmured into the curve of Ian’s neck.
    When Lucy returned, she brought a burst of cold air through the door with her. The cold seemed to lie on her surface in a sparkling film. And she was always lit up and laughing, excited by her expedition. She would hold out her arms to the children. “Were you good?” she would ask. “Did you miss me?” and she’d take the baby from Ian and nuzzle her face, nose to nose. “Guess what: I felt a couple of snowflakes. I bet we’re going to have snow tonight.” Balancing Daphne on her hip, she would fish in her big shoulder bag for Ian’s pay—generously rounding off to the nearest dollar, sometimes even adding a tip and telling him to take Cicely someplace nice. Ian knew that she and Danny weren’t rich, and he would protest but she always insisted. “Well, thanks,” he’d say lamely, and she would say, “Thank
you!
You don’t know how you saved my life.” Her money smelled of her cologne, a tingly scent that clung to the bills for hours afterward and hung in his room when he emptied his pockets at bedtime.
    One afternoon when she returned there was something distracted about her. She greeted the children absently and failed to inquire after Daphne, who was still asleep. “Ian,” she said right away, “can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “Can I ask what you think of this dress?”
    She slipped her coat off, revealing a different dress from the one she had left the house in. Holding her arms out at her sides, she spun like a fashion model. Thomas and Agatha gazed at her raptly. So did Ian.
    It was the most beautiful piece of clothing he had ever seen in his life. The material was a luminous ivory knit, very soft and drapey, but over her breasts and her hips it was perfectly smooth. What would you call suchmaterial? He could imagine its silkiness against his fingertips.
    “Do you think Danny will mind?” Lucy asked. “I don’t want him to feel I’m a spendthrift. Do you think I should take it back?”
    “Oh, well, I wouldn’t,” Ian said. “Now that you’ve gone to the bother of lugging it home.”
    She looked down at it, doubtfully.
    He told her, “That, um,