The Sisters Montclair Read Online Free PDF Page A

that read,
Queen of Everything.
On all the tables and book cases scattered throughout the room there were silver-framed photographs of a dark-haired man with black-rimmed glasses.
Bill Whittington
, Stella guessed. He was dressed always in a suit, and there was a pompous, self-satisfied air about him that Stella didn’t like. He was a small man but you could see that he had been vain and fastidious about his appearance. Oddly, there were no photographs of Alice as a young woman. There were a few of her as a child, and one or two of her as a middle-aged woman, but nothing else. The room, with its many photographs of Bill Whittington covering the tables and shelves, seemed almost like a shrine.
    On the dining room sideboard there were more silver-framed photographs of children and grandchildren, some sporting Alice’s clear blue eyes and blonde hair. Others resembled her husband, with their dark hair and eyes and their broad lantern jaws. Stella, who had only seen one photograph of her grandmother as a girl, was amazed, looking at the Whittington clan, at the certain passing of genetic material from one generation to the next.
    On the far wall near the dining room windows was an oil portrait of a young woman in a blue evening gown. Her hair was blonde and she wore it pulled back in the style of Grace Kelly. She was strikingly beautiful, and her face was turned slightly to the side, so that she seemed to be gazing off into the distance with a mild, dreamy expression on her face, a slight smile curving her lips. Stella had noticed the portrait several times as she and Alice made their rounds this morning, but she had not walked close enough to see it clearly. It hung on the wall above a mahogany chest cluttered with silver serving pieces.
    Staring at the portrait Stella became gradually aware of the creaking of floorboards behind her, as if someone was walking along the hall. She turned and stared, and the creaking stopped. She stood for a moment listening intently, but heard nothing besides the distant whirring of the refrigerator.
    She turned back to the portrait. The young woman’s face seemed oddly familiar, and feeling a slight tremor, a cold touch at the nape of her neck, she thought,
Now, who does she remind me of?
    She wandered into the sunroom and picked up the biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. “She was a Sweet Briar alum, too,” Alice had told her. “I never met her but I used to get fund raising letters from her all the time.” She sat down in a small upholstered chair. Sunlight fell in wide swaths across the tiled floor. After some time, drowsy with the heat and the soft sound of Alice’s breathing on the monitor, Stella closed her eyes. She folded her hands on the book nestled in her lap. How pleasant to live like this, removed completely from the cares of the world, shut up behind thick protective walls like a princess in an enchanted castle.
    After awhile, Stella dozed.
    She awoke gradually to the sound of whispering on the monitor. It had been continuing steadily, she realized, coming out of sleep into wakefulness. She had heard it in her dreams. It was a deep voice she heard now, low and hoarse and anguished.
    Laura. Oh my God, Laura.
    Stella sat up. The book slid out of her lap onto the floor with a loud clap. She was instantly awake, the hair on her arms rising. The voice she had heard was so tormented that she could feel it like a tremor along her spine.
    She leaned forward, listening intently. The only sound now was Alice’s soft breathing, followed a few minutes later by the noise of the bedsprings giving as she rolled over. The sudden, loud ringing of the bell made Stella jump.
    “Jesus,” she said.
    She got up quickly, walking down the long dark hallway, past the locked front door, to Alice’s bedroom. The elderly woman was sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands in her lap, her hair standing up behind her head like a dove’s wing. She looked confused, disturbed.
    “Alice, are you