The Comfort of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

not sure. It’s so busy at work, and—”
    “Honey, we’ll always have a reason to say ‘Not now.’ We’ll always be busy. But we can make time, and we’ll make room.” He scanned their cramped bedroom. “Though we’ll need more space. We might as well do it all up at once, eh? Look for the right neighborhood, right schools. Find the right house. My guess? Real estate will also drop soon.”
    Caroline—calm, always-good-in-an-emergency, hard-to-ruffle Caroline—felt as though she’d have an anxiety attack if he said one more word. “No,” she said.
    “No?”
    “I love our apartment,” she said. “I love our neighborhood.”
    “We need to find a place with great schools.”
    “We can find private schools,” Caroline insisted. “Like you said, we’ll have the money. I won’t do well in the suburbs.”
    “That’s just fear talking. I know how much you hate transition, but really, you’re going to be a wonderful mother wherever we are.”
    No she wouldn’t.
    “You’re perfect. Calm and loving. Smart. You’re always grounded. I adore that about you.” He stroked her arm.
    “Grounded? How romantic.”
    “And funny. Did I mention funny?”
    She managed a smile. “No one ever described me as funny.”
    “Oops, I meant that I was funny. And that you were smart to marry me.”
    She had been smart to marry him. He lightened her, he cosseted her, he made her into a better person—more aware of the world beyond her boundaries. But she didn’t want to change anything. Their life: she loved the way their life was now. A baby would ruin everything.

Part 2

AFTER

CHAPTER 4
    Tia
    “If you give away your child, you might as well give away your legs, because you’re going to end up a cripple.”
    Tia remembered her mother’s words as she studied her daughter’s face, captured in the photographs spread over the kitchen table. In the moment, her mother had seemed cruel, but now Tia recognized her mother’s desperate attempt to cram in last bits of wisdom before dying.
    Tia ignored Sunday’s Boston Globe as she scrutinized the pictures. Each year, around her daughter’s March birthday, a blandly pleasant note and five photos arrived from Caroline Fitzgerald. She studied five-year-old Honor: cross-legged on a pink duvet, dressed up in a red velvet dress, sturdy legs pumping a swing, holding a doll, digging an ambitious hole on a sandy beach. The pictures had remained on the table since they arrived in yesterday’s mail, Tia returning repeatedly to memorize the images. Hunger to see her daughter peaked every March, when Honor’s birthday, the arrival of Honor photos, and the anniversary of Tia’s mother’s death collided.
    Tia’s fantasies of motherhood weren’t grand visions. She yearned for the comforts of simple physical and mundane mothering; dailymaternal tasks such as pouring milk and braiding her daughter’s hair had become her daydreams. It seemed impossible that her daughter couldn’t feel her love on some cellular level. Tia imagined that when she had sweet thoughts of her girl, love emanated from her and entered Honor.
    She chewed on her lower lip as she lifted a close-up of Honor clutching a doll, searching for evidence of her and Nathan in the image. Honor’s dense, shiny hair reminded Tia of Nathan. Like him, Honor was heavy boned in an appealing way, like thick, rich soup. Only the child’s intense stare revealed any resemblance to Tia. She brought the picture closer, but couldn’t read Honor’s expression.
    Sometimes she prayed to be free of her yearning for Honor, but more often, Tia held that ache close. Longing was her connection to her daughter, and she couldn’t bring herself to wish it away.
    Tia splashed the tiniest drop of whiskey in her morning coffee, and then, as homage to her bad and Nathan, she spread rich salmon cream cheese on a bagel. Nathan had introduced Irish-Italian Tia to lox. He swore that Boston bagels were a farce compared to those in New York, but