Death in a Beach Chair Read Online Free

him.”
    “You mean his health?” Susan asked, instantly concerned. Too many men of Jed and Jerry’s age were having heart attacks. As a wife, she wasn’t taking any chances. She might eat Häagen-Dazs ice cream herself, but she hid it on the bottom shelf of the basement freezer and offered low-fat frozen yogurt to her husband.
    “No, his health is okay. I insisted that he get a complete physical the first week of January and everything’s fine.” She paused for a moment, slowly moving her paddle in and out of the surf. “I’ve been wondering if he’s depressed. You know, if he should see a psychiatrist.”
    “Have you suggested it?”
    “Not directly. Jerry’s too smart to believe that having problems with your mental health is anything to be ashamed of, but I don’t want him to think that I think there’s something wrong with him. I’ve wondered out loud if antidepressants would make life easier, when we’re watching TV and those ads come on, though.”
    “How does he respond?”
    “He just nods and sort of grunts like he isn’t listening too carefully. You know how men are sometimes.”
    “I sure do. But, if you really think he needs to see someone . . .”
    “I don’t know what he needs,” Kathleen said. The happy expression on her face when she’d been watching the fish had vanished, Susan noticed. “I know he’s unhappy, miserable even. But I don’t know why and I don’t know what to do about it. I just keep thinking . . .”
    “What?” Susan urged her friend to continue talking. “What do you keep thinking?”
    “I keep thinking that Jerry’s regretting getting married to me and . . . and having a second family.”
    “Kathleen, that’s not possible. Jerry loves you and the kids! How could you even consider that?”
    “I—there are lots of little things. He really is unhappy, Susan. He says it’s just problems at work and that they will clear up. But it’s been getting worse for over a month. And last week—” She stopped speaking.
    “What happened last week?”
    Kathleen was obviously having a difficult time discussing this. She took a deep breath and began. “I was looking for summer clothing to bring on this trip, so I went into the back of Jerry’s closet where he stores his golf shoes and things like that and I found a cardboard box full of photos of June and the girls. It was open as though Jerry had been going through it recently. I don’t resent it or anything, but when I found that—and then connected it to the fact that he’s been so depressed and not like himself at all—well, I just wonder what he’s thinking. His personality has really changed in the past few months. He’s even been shouting at the kids, and you know that’s not like him. Usually Alex and Emily get away with murder when he’s around.”
    “The two things might not be connected,” Susan suggested. She heard the pain in her friend’s voice and wanted desperately to offer her some solace. “Or the box of photos might have been stored there and just fallen out. You know he must think about them sometimes.”
    “Of course I do. We talk about them. And he talks to the kids about them, too. After all, Alex has had two of the teachers that Jerry and June’s oldest daughter had, and Emily has the same kindergarten teacher that their youngest girl had. Every once in a while someone who doesn’t know about the accident will assume that those girls are still alive and that Alex or Emily is a younger sibling. The kids have always had to deal with that, so of course they know about the accident. It doesn’t seem to worry Emily at all, although Alex is old enough to begin asking questions about his daddy being sad because of the deaths.”
    “He’s a really levelheaded kid,” Susan said.
    “I know. And I’m thankful for that, but when he has nightmares like he did the night before we left, I wonder if the tragedy that ended Jerry’s first marriage hasn’t affected him somehow.”
    “And