The Surprise of His Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

then. I bought one a month for eight
months...."
    "Mother,
please move."
    "All
these years, I've never even chipped one...."
    "Mother,
please."
    "I've
been so careful...."
    "It's
only a glass," Lindsey said.
    "It
just slipped out of my hand...."
    "Mother,
watch it! You're going to... Ah, Mother, you cut yourself!"
    As
though it were beyond her capability to understand, Bunny stared at the drop of
blood that had appeared on the pad of her thumb.
    "I
cut myself," she mumbled.
    Lindsey
looked up at Walker, silently asking for his help.
    He
squatted beside the woman who'd been like a sister to him. "C'mon, Bunny,
let's go into the den." When she didn't acknowledge him in any way, but
rather continued to watch the drop of blood grow larger and larger until it
resembled a sad scarlet tear, Walker tipped her hand, forcing the glass to
tumble downward again. "Put the glass on the floor, babe, and let's go get
a Band-Aid. Okay?"
    With
Walker's assistance, Bunny rose and tonelessly announced, "I broke the
glass."
    "It
doesn't matter," Walker assured her. "It's only a glass."
    "We
bought them when we married."
    "I
know."
    From
the doorway, he glanced back at Lindsey, who stood with the fragments scattered
about her feet. She looked as if a sculptor had chiseled her face into a pose
of concern.
    "She's
all right," Walker said quietly.
    Ten
minutes later, the glass cleared from the floor, the dishwasher loaded, Lindsey
found her mother, a Band-Aid wrapped about her thumb, stretched out on the den
sofa. She was sound asleep. Walker sat in the lounge chair, one leg negligently
squared over the other. He held an empty shot glass.
    "How
did you get her to go to sleep?" Lindsey whispered.
    Walker
raised the glass and said in the same hushed tones, "Exhaustion and booze
are a lethal combination."
    "She
doesn't look like she's slept all week," Lindsey remarked.
    "I'm
sure she hasn't."
    "She is all right, isn't she?" Lindsey asked, suddenly, and desperately,
needing some reassurance.
    "She
just needs to rest," Walker said, adding with half of a grin, "I
think you could use a little rest yourself." Earlier he'd thought how
unscathed she looked, how resilient youth was, but now he could clearly see
that the stressful week had likewise taken its toll on her. She looked tired.
Dog tired. Setting the glass down on the coffee table, he said as he rose,
"I'm gonna get out of here and let you go to bed."
    "What
time is it?"
    Walker
checked the leather watch at his wrist. It was an old watch, one his wife had
given him as a Christmas present, but old had a way of feeling familiar and
comfortable. "Nine thirty-three."
    Lindsey
screwed up her face, as though trying to reason out a puzzle. "That makes
it..." She sighed, as though the puzzle were too much for her to mentally
negotiate in her fatigued state. "That makes it sometime tomorrow in
London."
    "Well,
you need some sleep tonight," he said, starting for the door.
    "I'll
walk you out."
    Bunny
whimpered, a sound made in the throes of sleep, restless sleep.
    Stepping
forward, Lindsey grabbed an afghan from the back of a nearby chair and draped
it across her mother. The gesture, Walker thought, was one of pure nurturing.
It said warm and caring as only a woman could. Over the years, he had missed
such tenderness—the sweetness, the gentleness, the lace and frills of the
feminine gender. Of late, he seemed to miss it even more. Watching Lindsey now,
he was acutely reminded of how empty he sometimes felt, of how long the
after-work hours could be, of how blunt were the rough edges of his masculine
life-style and how he sometimes ached for a woman's softness. Damn, he thought
suddenly, he was getting old. Old and maudlin.
    As
he and Lindsey stepped outside, the summer heat swarmed about them, reminding
them that August was a hostile month in the South. As if in compensation, however,
gigantic stars glittered in bounteous plenty, while a slice of crescent moon, a
shiny scythe of platinum, rode high in the