The Man With the Alabaster Heart Read Online Free PDF

hand. It was a good sign that he let me hold it and even squeezed back. "I don't think I helped. I'm sorry."
    He looked at me for a minute. I may have been wincing just a bit. "Did you make things worse?" he finally asked.
    "Well," I said again. "I may have accused your great uncle of being in the closet."
    Milton's mouth dropped open. "You think he's gay?"
    I shrugged. "I thought it was a possibility. I mean, he's never been married, never even had a girlfriend as far as anyone in the family knows."
    "You talked to my family about this?"
    "Only Ted," I said. "And I never mentioned to him that I thought your great uncle was gay."
    "Who did you mention it to?"
    My stud muffin knows me well. "Your mother," I said.
    He groaned and dropped his head on the counter. "Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse. Do I at least get to keep the family name?"
    I stroked the back of his head with my free hand. "Listen, I think your mom knows more than she's telling. In fact, it sounded like she wanted to spill a thirty-five year old secret, but the old man wouldn't let her."
    "A thirty-five year old secret," Milton muttered. He raised his head off the countertop and frowned at me. "That would make it a first marriage secret, back when she was married to Dory's dad."
    "The marriage you can't talk about."
    "Yeah."
    "Did anybody? Ever talk about it?"
    Milton shook his head. "Dory was only two when they split up. I don't think she really remembers him. Nobody does. Dory doesn't even have any pictures. Mother always said my dad was the only father us kids ever had."
    The timer on the stove dinged. "You feel like eating?" I asked. "I could always just turn the oven off and we could eat later."
    Milton straightened his shoulders. "I'm hungry. You don't make lasagna unless my life's been turned upside down, and I think this qualifies, so let's eat."
    Sometimes, I don't think I deserve him.
    My stud muffin helped make garlic bread and salad. We'd polished off half the lasagna when the front door buzzer sounded.
    "You expecting anyone?" Milton asked.
    I shook my head.
    Milton got up and answered the buzzer. I'm not sure who was more surprised when his mother's voice sounded over the loudspeaker, asking us to buzz her in.
    We did.
    I offered Mrs. Grosbeck a plate of lasagna, but she declined. "It smells very good," she said, "but I try not to eat things with red sauce. It's too difficult to clean up."
    Huh. "We also have garlic bread," I said.
    "Perhaps later. Right now there are a few things I want to talk about with the both of you, and then I don't ever want them mentioned again. Can we agree to that?"
    Milton cleared his throat. "It's difficult to agree to something when I don't know exactly what I'm agreeing to."
    "Take it or leave it," she said.
    I had to give my boyfriend credit. He actually thought it over before he agreed.
    We were all still standing in our entry way. I couldn't remember the last time Milton's mother had been to our apartment. It probably wasn't anywhere close to clean enough by her standards, but it was comfortable, and it was our home. There was no reason we all had to linger by the front door.
    "Why don't we all go sit in the living room," I said. "I can get us some coffee."
    She actually smiled at me. "Thank you, but coffee won't be necessary. Although I would like to sit down."
    She perched on the edge of our brown faux-leather chair, which I thought was very brave of her. It could have been hiding tons of unseen dirt. Milton and I sat down across from her on the couch. She clutched her purse with both hands, holding it on her lap like it might fly away if she put it down.
    "Now that I'm here, I'm not sure where to start," she said.
    Milton didn't say anything. I could tell by his expression that he was still too hurt by what had happened the day before to make anything easy for his mother.
    "The beginning's always a good place," I said.
    "Yes, there is that." She took a deep breath. "You may find this hard to