The Burden of Proof Read Online Free PDF

himself at many moments but returned inevitably to the comfort of his sisters. Close-knit, Stern's children appeared to take strength from each other:
    Marta again mentioned bridge. "Daddy, would you mind?"
    Stern lifted his palms, not quite an answer.
    "Will you play?" Kate asked her father.
    Silvia motioned Stern forward, encouraging him.
    "I have a few things to look after for later." She was preparing the household for the crush of callers that would follow the funeral.
    "I shall help Aunt Silvia. You four play."
    "I'll help Aunt Silvia," said John. He was on his feet already, a huge young man, a mountainous blond with a neck thick as a tire rim. He had never mastered the game, like so many other things attached to his in-laws. The Sterns with their quiet intense ways had mystified John for most of a decade.
    "Come on," Marta called. She was in.the sun room, already looking for cards. Stern understood his daughter's excitement. For an instant, it would be as when she was seventeen and the children were all safe from the world of grownup difficulties. Stern, as ever, found himself chafed and touched by his Marta and her impulses.
    "Katy, I will play with you," Stern announced. He was always a partner with one of the girls; usually Kate. He and Peter squabbled when they played together. Stern had spent much of the little time he had at home playing one game or another with his children. Chutes and Ladders.
    Monopoly. Word games when they were in the primary grades.
    The four of them spent hours around a game table in the sun room. Clara seldom participated. Often she would sit in a fifth chair, with hands and ankles primly crossed, watching or, when necessary, assisting Kate.
    But she was not obtrusive. This, for better or worse--rules, moves, strategies--was Alejandro's time.
    Peter made the cards and handed them to Stern to deal. The sun room--referred to in the old architect's plans, drawn in the twenties, as 'the solarjura'--was a narrow area, rimmed with windows, floored in slate. From here they looked directly at Clara's garden. It was the time of year when she would have begun to turn the soil. The stalks of last year's gladloll, trimmed neatly almost to the soil, rose in rows, survivors of the mild winter.
    Stern bid a weak club. He played all conventions. Anything but hand signals, Clara said.
    "Are you going back to work after the baby?" Marta asked her sister.
    Kate seemed a bit puzzled. Her future, such as it was, was apparently beyond her. Within, Stern seemed to cringe. This child with a child!
    By John, no less. Veyiz mir. Kate told Marta that they did not know yet how the money would work out or how she would feel about leaving the baby.
    "Oh, it'll be your first," said Peter. "You'll want to give it lots of attention. It will always be special."
    The doorbell rang. Through the front panes, Stern saw his brother-in-law. Dixon had returned to town last night. He had been in New York on pressing business and had delayed flying home. Stern had felt slighted--the usual with Dixon-and he was taken aback, therefore, at his relief at seeing Dixon on the threshold with his bags yesterday evening. His brother-in-law, a large, solid man, had thrown his arms about Stern and made a good show of great sorrow. One could seldom be certain how Dixon truly felt. That was part of his genius--he was like a forest, full of many colors. He could greet you at any instant with a salesman's blather or the gruffest truths.
    This morning, however, Dixon's attention had returned more typically to himself. As Stern took his coat, Dixon lowered his voice discreetly.
    "When you're back at the stand, Stern, I'd like to ask you a question or two."
    Dixon always addressed him military fashion, last name only. They had met originally in the service, which had led, by turns, to Dixon's making Silvia's acquaintance and to his becoming in time her suitor, a development to which Stern was still not fully adjusted, three decades after the