Goodnight Blackbird Read Online Free Page B

house because you're punishing yourself. You don't want to forget seeing her in the pool like that. I know what that therapist said, that you had finally gotten beyond blaming yourself. But maybe you haven't. And maybe you don't want any more kids because deep down you're afraid you're incompetent. A lethal mother. But rather than admit that, it's easier to attack me."
    Jacqueline placed her hands on the table, the cold, unappetizing pizza between them like a modern still life. It was clear she would probably throw the pizza away, even though the only things she'd eaten all day were some cheese and crackers from the office vending machine.
    "Does what I said capture the essence of you?" Kevin said. "Does it sum you up? Probably not. I hope not. So maybe my desire to get back to a normal life with you has nothing to do with the pathetic little caricature you've drawn of me."
    She sounded like a sullen, chastened little girl when she said, "I wasn't trying to hurt you."
    Kevin sighed. "I just don't get you anymore. It's like you're completely closed off to me now. Like you're full of secrets you don't want to tell."
    "I think we're all like that," Jacqueline said.
     
    And she did have secrets. There was the issue of the business cards, there were her changing feelings for Kevin, who had once been the alpha and omega of her life, whose very presence had once been enough to make her heart race with a love/lust/adoration/joy that had been nearly painful.
    There was also the matter of the anorexia. Well, maybe it wasn't truly anorexia yet—but in the last six months she seemed to have lost all interest in food. There were many, many days when she subsisted on toast and coffee for breakfast, and nine hours later she'd have a peach and a glass of iced tea for dinner. No lunch. Even when the hunger got too distracting and she broke down and had a full meal—take-out Chinese, usually, or lasagna classico at Olive Garden—there was invariably quite a bit left on her plate at the end of the night. Food just seemed unimportant—a necessary evil. It amazed her how some people made such a big deal out of it. She labeled such people trivial and then avoided those people.
    There were other secrets as well. Little ones, unimportant ones. Like her newfound love of seventies soul music—the Commodores, Marvin Gaye, the Delfonics, the Chi-Lites. There was her almost sensual satisfaction in being alone. Xanax was wonderful but being alone cleared her mind and calmed her like nothing else could.
    And being alone made another secret, her final secret, possible.
    After Kevin left that evening, she went about her usual routine: a few minutes of TV, another glass of iced tea, a halfhearted attempt to catch up on some office busywork. Once that was done it was eight o'clock and the rest of the night spread out before her like a quiet, dark ocean, breathtaking in its vast emptiness. Sometimes at night she would read—books on life after death and mediumship, mostly. But most of the time she simply wandered the house, not thinking of much in particular, just trying to get her mind to gear down into a trance-like peace where everything in her world fell away—Kevin, work stresses, everything. She could then feel her senses sharpen and she'd become more receptive to her surroundings. The throbbing, frantic buzz of the evening crickets would sound louder, more hypnotic. The everyday house smells—the mock orange blossoms from the bush by the front door, the synthetic lemony scent of the dishwashing liquid—would intensify, as if they were magical perfumes cast by some invisible sorceress. The sorcery was almost always effective; Jacqueline would be so drowsy and empty and mentally purged that a rejuvenating, healing sleep would be almost guaranteed. And lately that sleep had a nice little bonus to it. A couple weeks ago, Michelle had come to her in a dream in the early morning hours. In the dream, Jacqueline had been at the Richmond Mall Starbucks