The Abortionist's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

detective stood there with his hands awkwardly on his hips, and she willed him not to say anything about the fogged-up windshield, because her father would get on her case for not getting the defroster fixed.
    “I lost traction,” she explained. “I slid into a ditch. I could see fine.” Shut up, she thought. Who needs to know?
    “I figured as much,” the detective said. “In any case I’m glad you made it home. Of course, I’m terribly sorry,” he added.
    Megan went over and sat by the edge of the pool, looking at her mother’s form. The girl with the wobbly legs had vanished by now, and Megan found herself wondering if her mother had been frightened. Or did she even know what was happening? Maybe she just slipped. Then again, maybe somebody sneaked in and hit her over the head. She told herself it didn’t matter, her mother was dead either way, and she wondered if her mother had forgiven her for the things she said, for her
attitude,
that morning.
    “Come on,” her father said, taking her arm. “We’ll go out to the kitchen.”
    “Actually,” Ernie began, “actually, Frank, the two of you really need to find someplace else to go. You’ve got a lot of friends.”
    Her father’s face hardened. “I certainly do have a lot of friends,” he said without any trace of a smile, “but it’s my house, and I’m going to go and make my daughter a cup of tea.”
    Ernie glanced at Huck. “Actually we just want to prevent this from turning into another—”
    “You think I’m going to fuck with things?”
    “It’s a question of following procedure, Frank,” said Ernie.
    “Fine. I’m following procedure. I’m being a father.”
    Ernie was about to say something back, but Huck caught his elbow and drew him aside. Frank and Megan walked out into the hall.
    “What was that all about?” said Megan.
    “Our house is a crime scene,” said Frank. “They don’t want us contaminating the evidence. In fact, we’re not even supposed to be here right now, but too bad. I’m making us some tea.”
    Suddenly Megan remembered her mother’s stash. She hurried ahead into the kitchen and opened up the spice cupboard, spun the lazy Susan, and took the jar of thyme, which was not thyme at all, and dumped the dried buds and leaves down the garbage disposal and turned on the water and ran the disposal. Her father looked on.
    “We don’t need to cloud the issues, Dad,” she told him. “It’s okay. Really.” She dried the jar with a paper towel, replaced the lid, and put it back in the cabinet. “
Really,
Dad. So what happened?”
    “I came home around four,” her father said. “We had a brief exchange.”
    “You mean a fight?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Over what?”
    Her father looked at her strangely then, as if to imply that she shouldn’t be asking, and she wanted to say,
You’re going to keep me in the dark?
But something in his eyes told her that it wasn’t anything to press at the moment, and she kept silent and watched as her father set the teakettle on the burner, opened the tea drawer, rummaged around, opened the cupboard, got out cups. She had a vague sense that the two detectives would go ballistic if they could see everything she and her father were touching here in the kitchen, but she was reassured by the fact that her father was a prosecutor. He would know what was right and what was wrong, in circumstances such as these.
    Besides, if there were clues to be found, they wouldn’t be in the kitchen. She glanced around, trying to view the room as the detectives might view it. A pile of unopened mail lay recklessly tossed on the center island, and a basket of white laundry sat unfolded on the floor. Other than that, the kitchen was relatively tidy. A queer feeling came over her as she suddenly realized that she no longer felt like this was her house.
    “Are they going to make us leave?”
    “They’re going to try.” He was pawing through the tea drawer; half the boxes were empty, and