Grace Read Online Free Page A

making pretty projects for the children in her class. Sally has made a special corner in the kitchen for Giselle’s toys, but Giselle does not play in her corner. She plays near Sally’s feet.
    It’s a comfortable kitchen. The back door leads down a concrete staircase to a tiny garden which they share with the owner of the street floor apartment. It belongs to a married man, a doctor who keeps the apartment for his afternoon trysts. Thegarden does not interest him and he lets Sally have total run of it. Even with the oak tree, there is space in the garden for wrought iron furniture, herbs, pink pansies in the spring and an assortment of annuals Sally plants every year.
    The living room and dining room, which are in front of the kitchen, are in fact one large room with the original oak woodwork framing the ceilings, windows, and doors. The darkwood floors are covered with two large Oriental rugs, one under a mahogany dining set with an antique chandelier dropping above the table, the other between two plump couches and two matching armchairs in an assortment of red patterns. The room faces a quiet street and gets the afternoon sun.
    Yes, Justin thinks, he and Sally have much to be grateful for. He wants to remind her of that.
    “We have a lot,” he says.
    “Things,” she says. “We have things.”
    “Things matter. On a cold day like today, things matter, Sally. It won’t feel fine to be without a roof over your head on a day like today.”
    All he wants to do is to convey the hunter’s need for recognition, for appreciation for his kill. But the millet gatherer, the bearer of children, the nurturer, does not want to feel beholden, nor believes she should.
    “Are you threatening me?” Sally looks at him with steely eyes.
    “You’ll be forty soon, Sally,” he says, his tone mollified. “A lot of people feel dissatisfied with their life at forty.”
    “Yes. Maybe that is it. I will be forty soon.” She picks up thewooden spoon and stirs the batter. It clunks against the sides of the ceramic bowl. Kitchen sounds. Domesticity restored. A house back to normal.
    There will be time to talk again tomorrow, Justin thinks.
    But suddenly Sally’s hand is moving faster. Muscles pop out from her forearm. Kitchen sounds become the crack of a spoon used as a weapon. “You
really
don’t want to know why I am unhappy, do you, Justin?” Sally’s fingers are curled tightly around the spoon; the knobs are pointed and shiny.
    Justin’s stomach forms a knot. “I asked you,” he says. He cannot hide his exasperation.
    “But you don’t want to know my answer. You only want to make fun of the books I read, the things I believe. You want to take the road of least resistance.”
    He gets up.
A farce. I am in a farce.
    “It is space I want, Justin. Space for Sally.” As suddenly as it began, her hand stops its whipping motion. She is looking directly at him. “I want to find Sally,” she says.
    He will not be trapped in her little farce of the road of least resistance, her psychobabble. “I think I’ll go to the college after all,” he says.
    “Do that,” she says.
    But she drops the spoon and rushes out of the door before he can leave the room.

THREE

    They were happy once. It was not a long time ago. Only eight months have passed since they were walking hand in hand through the park near their home, Giselle happily trailing behind them. It was Giselle’s half birthday. She was three and a half. Two of her friends had already turned four. She wanted a birthday party too. Sally tried to explain: She had six more months to go. What is six months? Giselle wanted to know. Half a year, Sally told her. You have a half a year more before you are four. Half a year more? Giselle was inconsolable. Then Sally had the idea of a halfway birthday. A half birthday, Giselle called it.
    They wouldn’t have a party. They agreed on that. Just a celebration with Mommy and Daddy. And of course there would be a present. Justin drove to