The Tell Read Online Free PDF

was her, and she pressed two fingers to her lower lip to hide herself. She gave herself away like this, her private moment of retreat. But when you watched her in action, relaxed like this—as Wilton watched her now—you saw a face that was somehow more than any other. Mira was more than any woman Owen had ever known, more intent, determined, more completely herself and still at times not known to him. Which is how he knew it should be with a woman you loved. To know her completely would be the end of trying.
    â€œTell me more about Brindle,” Wilton said, still watching her.
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” she laughed evasively. “You really want to hear about that?”
    Wilton nodded, and Mira’s flattered mouth was glossy with wine, the lower lip exposed. The cork made a satisfying pop to match an enthusiasm about Brindle that came on like a summer storm and filled the room. Owen hadn’t seen her this expansive and loose in a while, certainly not since the break-in. She talked about the school’s fundraiser coming up next month, the life-drawing class for the residents of an assisted-living facility bused in from Lincoln, and the ceramics class for the boys from Noah House who arrived in the battered van two afternoons a week, sometimes so agitated that she could only guess at what had happened at school or at home. They were always hungry, so she fed them and gave them clothes when they didn’t have enough. Some had terrible stories.
    â€œYou have no idea,” she said.
    Wilton shook his head. “I’m sure I don’t.”
    â€œYou can’t imagine,” Owen said.
    He knew that Mira thought of those who had passed through Brindle and her curative, instructive hands in the same way a salesman marked his successes on a map with colored pins, conquests that dotted the city. You looked for density, entire shaded areas, progress. He admired how certain she was of her work and her impact, when on many days, he doubted his own effectiveness in the classroom. He was probably not meant to teach children; he still didn’t know what he was meant to do.
    Wilton sighed theatrically. “Good work must make all the difference in a life. Personally, I have no ambition myself.” He smirked, but his expression suggested a resigned truth about himself. “I’m just a man who was once on television. And what’s that ever done for anyone? Television’s for shit. That’s not the real kind of good work.”
    â€œGood work?” Mira said. “I don’t know that I do good work. Necessary work, maybe, though very small in the scheme of things. Way too small.” She sipped her wine. “The trouble is, there’s never enough money to do even this miniscule part. And it’s getting tougher and tougher out there every day. And the way things are now? All those multicolored kids with the funny accents and all those shaky recovering drug addicts—they just don’t bring in the bucks like they used to. My donors are suffering from compassion fatigue. And the older they get, the less they care. Old people love their pennies all over again. They hide them under their pillows at night.” She sat back and rested her feet against the edge of the low table. On the wall behind her were drawn portraits of the Thrashers with their arrowed noses and platinum eyes. They were gazelles, regal, elegant, a haughty species on the plains of Providence. Mira was one of them, the last of the herd for now, an orphan without siblings, a woman without children. Car lights washed over Mira and Wilton, turning them ghostly for an instant.
    â€œAmazing to have grown up with all this,” Wilton said, and opened his hands to the room. “This was my fantasy as a kid. To grow up in a place full of beautiful things.”
    â€œBut look at it,” Mira said, without looking at any of it. “A million things to know about and I am no expert.