Surrender, Dorothy Read Online Free PDF

and Sara speaking in quiet, angry voices. Maddy had been independently researching the topic from a legal standpoint and hoped to publish an article about it in a law journal, even though it had nothing to do with her area of expertise, which was torts. But it had all been put on hold after her baby was born and she went on leave from the law firm.
    At dinner, the serious discussion about genital mutilation led to some silly talk about Notary Publics. “What is a Notary Public, anyway?” Peter asked. “I know everyone has to use them once in a while, and sometimes you can find them in the weirdest places, like the back of a hardware store, just sitting there under a display of Phillips head screwdrivers or something, and you pay them to stamp your papers, but who are they? And how did they get to be who they are?”
    “I think they have to go to school for it,” said Maddy.
    “But what do they learn in Notary Public school?” asked Sara. “What’s on the final exam?”
    “And why,” said Peter, “would someone want to be a Notary Public? This is the great mystery of the universe; forget aboutwhy the dinosaurs disappeared. There are a million jobs to choose from out there, and this is the one they pick.” They were laughing now, enjoying the familiar cadences of their conversation.
    The group had come together freshman year at Wesleyan, when they had lived together on the third floor of a dormitory. Their humor, and many of their references, were often inaccessible to anyone else. Their entire view of the world was tilted and limited, a fact that they recognized. In earlier years they had considered themselves ageless, their bodies unlined and resilient, their experiences somehow meaningless.
    But that was their twenties; now they were thirty. Everything was different at thirty; nothing was taken lightly or carelessly. Now they talked and talked, these thirty-year-olds, in the kitchen they sat in every August. The kitchen chairs were uncomfortable in a 1950s suburban way—coral vinyl bolted down with metal studs—and the tablecloth was shiny oilcloth, but the company (except for Shawn, the unknown presence) was so welcome and comforting, that everyone seemed on the verge of nostalgic tears. This day, after all, served as the letting-go of the held breath of all the months, the release from a year in New York that had been particularly grim, locking them into their fluorescent cubicles at work, and the small apartments they called home. They had barely gone outside all winter; they had ordered movies from the video store, and a rotation of take-out dinners (Chinese, Thai, barbecue), waiting for it to become bearable outdoors, and for the world to once again seem approachable. The newspapers reported that people had frozen on the streets that January in record numbers, the alcohol in their blood quickening death. But then spring arrived, transforming seamlessly into summer. Now here they were again, wearing shorts and gathering to eat the tender meat of local lobsters, and it seemed as though winter had never even taken place.
    Later that first evening, after the sun set and they were all sitting on the deck that looked out over the scrubby yard, Adamannounced that he wanted to drive to town to buy ice cream to go atop the raspberry pie. Sara agreed to take him in the car. Shawn went inside and planted himself in front of the awful old piano, lightly playing one of the songs from his musical. Adam climbed back into the car with Sara and they headed out to the Fro-Z-Cone on the edge of town. The sky was still pale, and even though you couldn’t see the ocean from this road, you knew it was around here somewhere. Your hair felt damp; you thought you smelled salt, although you weren’t sure if salt really had a smell.
    “You hate him,” said Adam, as the car pulled out of the driveway. “Shawn, I mean.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “It’s all right. I hate him a little bit too,” said