Winter Storms Read Online Free PDF

first.”
    Patrick sounds like he’s just going to roll over and accept his fate rather than fight it. He has been in jail too long; he’s become submissive. Where is her take-charge, fix-everything husband?
    â€œHave you called Hollis?” Jennifer asks.
    â€œI called him, he knows, but there’s nothing he can do about it, and even if there were something he could do about it, it would likely take the same amount of time I have to wait anyway. It’s only three more weeks,” Patrick says. “I’ve gotten through eighteen months. I can wait three more weeks.”
    Maybe he can, but Jennifer can’t. June 1 is decorated with a pink heart on her calendar. In her mind, the day is a starburst. She has rationed her energy and her patience to make it to June 1—not a day longer. And certainly not three weeks longer. She has already planned a family dinner for Patrick’s first night home—poached salmon with mustard-dill sauce and the crispy potato croquettes that Patrick loves. And then the following two nights, Jennifer has farmed the boys out on sleepovers so that she and Patrick can have the house to themselves. She has bought new lingerie and new sheets; she has ordered a tin of osetra caviar and chilled a vintage bottle of Veuve. She has told Jaime, their youngest, that Patrick will make it to his final lacrosse game of the season. The plans are so embedded in Jennifer’s mind that she can’t shift them forward three weeks. She just can’t!
    â€œIt sounds like you
want
to stay in jail,” Jennifer says. “Maybe you have a little romance going on with Janine from Processing.”
    â€œJennifer,” Patrick says. “Please.”
    â€œPlease
what?
”
    â€œPlease try to understand. This isn’t my fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It was a misunderstanding. A scheduling glitch.”
    Jennifer nods into the phone but she can’t speak. She knows it’s not Patrick’s fault. She knows she should accept this news gracefully and adjust her expectations. She’s an interior designer. She, of all people, understands delays. It happens all the time in her business—carpets from India get stuck in Customs, quarries run out of a particular kind of granite, her son Barrett gets walking pneumonia and Jennifer has to postpone an installation by a week.
    â€œOkay,” she says. “We’ll see you on the twenty-first.”
    â€œThat’s my girl,” Patrick says.
    Jennifer hangs up the phone. Immediately, she calls Norah Vale.
    It’s June 20, the first day of summer, when Jennifer drives out to Shirley, Massachusetts, to pick Patrick up. She can’t seem to control her nerves, despite eating two Ativan for breakfast. Her heart is slamming in her chest, almost as if she’s afraid. Afraid of what? She went to visit Patrick a week ago Thursday and talked to him yesterday afternoon, but this is different. He’s coming home. He’s coming home!
    Patrick is standing by the gate with his favorite guard, Becker, a man even Jennifer has come to know and appreciate. Jennifer barely remembers to put the car in park. She jumps out and runs into Patrick’s arms. He picks her up and they kiss like crazy teenagers until Becker clears his throat and says, “You all need to get a room.”
    Patrick shakes Becker’s hand and says, “Thanks for having my back, man. I’m gonna miss you.”
    â€œNo, you won’t,” Becker says with a smile. “Now get out of here.”
    Patrick drives them home. He says, “It’s like the world is brand-new. I missed driving.”
    â€œYou hate driving,” Jennifer says.
    â€œI’ll never complain about it again,” Patrick says. “I’ll never complain about anything again.”
    It’s a good lesson about the things we take for granted, Jennifer thinks. Patrick reenters the free world with the enthusiasm of a