The Man With the Alabaster Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

believe, Milton, but I was once a very foolish young woman. Headstrong, and so sure I was right and everyone else in the world was wrong."
    I didn't know about Milton, but I had no problem believing the headstrong part.
    "Your great uncle, my uncle, he never planned on being saddled with me. Mildred, she had her friend's family to go live with, but they made it very clear they couldn't care for the two of us. They already had quite a large family. They were Catholic, you see, and..." She paused and seemed to gather herself. "None of that really matters. Your great uncle was very close to his sister--my mother--and I think her death devastated him. And there I was, a miniature reminder of what he'd lost. So he was never as close--as affectionate--as perhaps he could have been under other circumstances. All I knew was that this strict, odd man was now my only family. I tried very hard to make him love me, and when I couldn't, I found someone who was very different."
    "A boyfriend?" I asked.
    "My first husband," she said.
    Next to me on the couch, Milton sat up a little straighter. "You've never talked about him."
    "And I won't again. I have no desire to now, but Charles here has made some assumptions about your great uncle that I think need to be cleared up, once and for all. He doesn't know that I'm here, doesn't know what I plan to tell you, and I would appreciate it if you never mention it to him. He's a prideful man, and he's in the last years of his life. His pride is what he has left and I won't have anyone take that away from him. That's why I agreed that he could come live with me."
    "I thought... " Milton turned to me. "We thought he was imposing on you, that he hadn't given you a choice."
    Mrs. Grosbeck smiled at her son. "Of course I let everyone think that. As I said, he's prideful. I'm alone most of the time. You children all have your own lives. I'm well off, and your great uncle is not. He took as good care of me as he knew how when I had no one else. It's the least I can do."
    I was seeing a whole new side of Milton's mother, and judging by my boyfriend's expression, so was he. I liked what I saw. I only hoped it wasn't the last time either one of us would see it.
    "What does your first husband have to do with what I said this afternoon?" I asked.
    "Because my first husband was gay," Milton's mother said. "Not Sherman."
    Well, I hadn't seen that coming.
    "I didn't know it at the time, of course," she said. "He was colorful and attentive, and he loved music and poetry, art and dance, and all the things your great uncle didn't. Did you know we didn't have a television in the house when I was growing up? No stereo? There I was, a senior in high school, and I had no common ground with most of the kids I went to school with. I had to babysit at other houses to listen to music or watch television. And here was this man who took me to movies, took me out dancing. It was 1974, and I fell in love."
    Mrs. Grosbeck's expression had become almost dreamy while she talked. I didn't think I'd ever seen her look younger. Or happier.
    "What happened?" I asked.
    "Well, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Only when we went to tell my uncle and I thought he'd be happy for me, he got a strange expression on his face, and he said no. He forbid me to ever see that man again, but he wouldn't tell me why. I told him I was eighteen and could do whatever I wished, and what I wished to do was get married. So I did. I thought my uncle would come around eventually. Instead, he brought me proof that he'd been right all along."
    She glanced down at her hands which were now digging furrows in her purse. I could see her make a conscious effort to relax.
    "If you don't want to tell us what happened, mother, you don't have to," Milton said.
    "No, I need to say this. You need to understand, both of you." She took another deep breath. "Dory was just a baby then, a beautiful little girl, so like her father. He'd told me he wanted to have