Still Waters Read Online Free PDF

talking. But they were together, and that was a comfort.
    Jenna was Bud’s girl by then. Everyone knew it. She didn’t have a ring on her finger, but in people’s minds she had been branded. Private property. Hands off.
    Jenna hadn’t minded that too much.
    Until Adam came home.
    Sitting on the park bench that afternoon, all they had talked about was Bud. How funny he was, what a good athlete, what a fine all-around fella. They had told Bud-stories until the sun began to set. Then they had fallen silent, watching the sky turn gold.
    As the first star had lit up in the twilight sky, Jenna had reached for him. And Adam had pulled away.
    Bud’s girl.
    * * *
    “He was better than both of us put together,” Adam said, looking down at her.
    “He was the best man I ever knew,” Jenna agreed. She couldn’t take her eyes from his. The sound of the rain faded into nothing. She was only slightly aware that Fritz got up, nosed open the door, and went to find his bed.
    Even the rocking of the swing stopped.
    And this time when she reached for him, he didn’t pull away.

PART TWO: LIFE
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
    — F RANCES H ODGSON B URNETT

C HAPTER F OUR
    Spring 1956
    I T HAD BEEN A LONG TIME since Adam had experienced Washington, DC in the springtime. As he tooled smoothly down 23rd Street and across Constitution Avenue, he told himself he had been away too long.
    Unfortunately, he had arrived in the city too late to see the daffodils, which was really too bad. In March, the daffodils liked to make a spectacle of themselves. They blanketed the hillside in Rock Creek Park and thrust out boldly in alleyways and other unexpected places, yellow trumpets announcing the triumphant end of winter.
    But he told himself philosophically that he would be here for the daffodils next year. And the year after that. Besides, the tulips were blooming now, sharp reds and yellows lining the flowerbeds along the narrow city streets, dancing in the gentle spring air. And didn’t they just look fine?
    Adam’s father had been a gardener. He had spent his life planting, mowing, and coaxing beautiful things to grow out of the earth. He had taught Adam to appreciate the precision and attention that goes into making a garden grow. It wasn’t just cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row — although Adam had always been particularly fond of the latter. It took time, and care, and understanding of the mysteriously scientific elements of nature.
    Not unlike making a woman fall in love with you, come to think of it.
    Adam heard himself whistling, and he smiled. He was in a fine mood on that sunny Saturday afternoon, no doubt about it. He had the top down on his new car; and the sun, shining brightly through the green trees, warmed his shoulders as he turned right from 23rd Street onto Lincoln Memorial Circle.
    He crossed Memorial Bridge, shifting smoothly into third gear, marveling at how effortlessly all the parts of his automobile worked together. The ball of the gearshift was snug against his palm, and he could feel the feral engine hungering to go faster. The magnificent creature was Adam’s first new car, and as far as he was concerned, mankind’s progress had peaked with the 1956 Chevrolet Corvette.
    And it had certainly turned into a good day for a convertible. During the past week, the city had been roofed with a cover of benign gray clouds, sprinkling down the occasional burst of friendly rain. Adam wasn’t usually one to mind gray skies and gloomy weather, but Jenna had been planning a backyard birthday party for her little boy, and rain would have been a considerable inconvenience.
    So what luck it was that just this morning the clouds had broken, revealing a sky the color of heaven, and allowing the sun to warm the air to a perfect temperature. Adam could picture all those little rug rats running around Jenna’s backyard, trailing balloons and wrapping paper, in a complete frenzy