The Last Embrace Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bess loved. And I had listened to the radio programs, too. But I had not had much opportunity to practice speaking and when I was nervous it all seemed to fade away.
    â€œCome meet our mother.” Before I could reply, Charlie strode across the lawn, covering it in about two steps. The others followed. “Mom!” The red-haired woman emerged from the house, wiping her hands on the apron that covered her light blue shirtwaist dress. “This is Addie. She’s staying next door.”
    The woman smiled with a kindness that said she had heard about me. “Hello! We’ve been summer neighbors of your aunt and uncle for years, though we usually get here a good deal earlier. I’m Doris Connally.”
    â€œWhere did you come from?” Robbie interjected.
    â€œFrom Trieste, in Italy. On a boat.”
    â€œAll by yourself?” he asked. I nodded, standing straighter.
    â€œWell, that’s something,” Mrs. Connally said, her voice full of admiration. “I normally wouldn’t even make the trip down to the shore by myself, but my husband had to work and the boys wanted to be here for the fireworks on the Fourth.”
    â€œWho lives there with you?” Robbie resumed his interrogation, pointing up to the screened porch where I had stood minutes earlier.
    â€œJust my aunt and my uncle.”
    â€œNo brothers or sisters? Any pets?” I shook my head twice, trying to keep up with his questions. “Boy, you’ll sure be glad to have us around!” His brothers chuckled.
    Robbie turned to his mother. “Can we keep her?”
    â€œRobbie, she isn’t a puppy. But I do hope you’ll join us often,” she added.
    â€œBecause we really need more kids,” Liam said wryly. His words stung. But he did not sound as though he was trying to be mean, just truthful.
    The yellow dog I’d seen earlier bounded down the porch steps and stopped at Liam’s feet. “This is Beau,” he added, face softening.
    â€œJack and Liam must be about your age,” Mrs. Connally remarked.
    â€œI’m sixteen.” I heard my accent again, the way my voice did not sound like theirs.
    â€œI’m taller,” said Liam improbably.
    â€œOkay,” I conceded, because it seemed to matter to him a great deal.
    â€œWould you like to join us for lunch?” Mrs. Connally offered. “I haven’t much ’til we get to Casel’s, just sandwiches.”
    I still could not get over the way Americans spoke so casually of food—something I would never again take for granted. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
    Mrs. Connally smiled. “Hardly. With these boys, I’m already cooking for an army. Come on, everyone. Let’s eat.”
    Charlie lifted Robbie across his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and started for the door with the twins at his heels. Inside, the house was airy and cool. There were little touches, like the carved oak bannister and wide windows, that said the house had been built for someone to live in year-round, and not merely as a vacation home.
    As we passed through the living room, I paused to admire a chess set which sat already unpacked on a low table. “It’s lovely,” I said, fingering one of the carved wooden rooks.
    â€œDo you play?” Charlie asked with new interest.
    I tried to calm the fluttering in my stomach. “I did. My father taught me.” In recent years when he had become broken and withdrawn, it was my one way to still connect to him. Papa had no one to play with him now. I imagined the chessboard sitting unused by the fireplace in our apartment in Trieste. It had been my dearest possession—the one thing I might have brought with me, had I known I was going.
    I followed Charlie through the open boxes that littered the floor to the freshly scrubbed kitchen smelling of lemons. Mrs. Connally unpacked a basket of meats and cheeses and began slicing thick white bread. My