When the Bough Breaks Read Online Free PDF

grasping that elusive something, but she felt weak and shaken with love.
    â€˜Kathie,’ he gasped when at last his convulsive movements were stilled, ‘wonderful . . . God . . . never knew . . . could be so wonderful.’ He shivered, suddenly realizing that they were still wet and soapy.
    Nuzzling against him she started to laugh. ‘What a pickle we’re in. We have to bale out the tub too. Oh Den, no one could have a better honeymoon than this.’
    â€˜No one,’ he agreed.
    â€˜You’re shivering. Best you hop back in that water and rinse the soap off. I ought to, too. If we stay soapy we shall get itchy.’
    â€˜Love you, Kathie Hawthorne, my practical wife.’
    Five minutes later, rinsed and rubbed vigorously with their towels, there was no choice but to be practical. Each with a saucepan they gradually baled out most of the water until holding one end each they were able to carry the bath outside and drain the last of it onto the patch of grass. With bare feet and their towels wrapped around them, it was a good thing they had no neighbours.
    She fetched his pyjamas and her nightdress and dressing gown.
    â€˜I couldn’t find your dressing gown,’ she said as she put the things on the kitchen table.
    â€˜Now what would I want with a thing like that? I always go straight to bed once I’ve cleared away the bath.’
    â€˜We’ll do that too in a minute, but first what do you want to drink, tea or cocoa?’
    â€˜Cocoa, please. I say, don’t we sound
married
! Cocoa at bedtime.’
    While she made the drinks he raked the fire in the range and banked it up for the night. Had she been as apprehensive as he had about how they’d manage the first time? Yet it had been so easy, so right – so wonderful. What a moment for that haunting vision to come back to him: no man’s land, shrieks and cries of the wounded, then the moment when he had seen Ted blown to bits. Poor bugger, no wife for him, no life, no kids to look forward to. And here am I with Kathie, with everything, our future ahead of us . . . I thank God from the bottom of my heart.
    The clean sheets were cold (and unironed too, but at least he had washed them ready to bring his bride to), but it would have taken far more than a cold bed to mar their first night together. Sex had never played a paramount part in Dennis’s life; he had usually been too physically weary to give it much thought unless it woke him in the middle of the night. But, relieved at the success of their first encounter, he was as ready as any bridegroom and this time with better control.
    â€˜I didn’t know it could be like that,’ Kathie spoke in an awed whisper when he moved off her. ‘Like climbing to the peak of a high mountain, stars shining and twinkling around you.’
    She was utterly sure that they were right for each other. So if what her mother had said was true, perhaps already they had made the beginning of a baby.
    â€˜Den,’ she whispered, ‘are you awake?’
    â€˜Um . . .’ More truthfully he was half awake.
    â€˜When two people are right for each other the easiest thing in the world is to conceive; that’s what my mother said. That’s why she keeps having babies. Do you suppose it’ll be like that for us?’
    â€˜Hope so,’ he mumbled, consciousness fast slipping beyond recall. ‘Need all the help we can get – an army of sons to dig and . . .’ Dennis slept but she was wideawake, eager for the future. With all the confidence of youth she saw it as cloudless; tragedies were things that happened to other people.

Two
    They were both young and their busy lives were full of challenge so, at least in the beginning, it was possible to hold on to the expectation that the family they took for granted would be part of their future.
    On a bright morning the following May a letter arrived from America with the news that Millicent, twice