On Tenterhooks Read Online Free Page A

general feeling of disorientation that came and went, as if she were somehow out of phase with all of the things in motion around her.
     
    Abby hadn’t discussed the dreams yet with her parents . A few weeks before Zack’s accident, she had spent time with her mom , watching a show about chefs who competed by making outrageously beautiful , but impossibly fragile , works of art from water, flour and sugar . For the final portion of the competition, the chefs had to load these unstable creations to a moving cart and bring them to the judges . Sometimes, the cakes never made it to the finish line. They might implode or sway and fall. The movement was too much for their fragile frame. That was Abby’s mom. If you kept her still, she was solid and beautiful . But when you intruded on her grief, she’d collapse . It wasn’t a dramatic response , but she’d retreat to her bedroom for hours, clutching a box of tissues on the way .
     
    Abby became aware soon after Zack’s death that you didn’t mention his name . Her mother had to initiate the conversation . If she mentioned Zack’s name first, you had a green light to proceed . It was a painful learning curve for Abby .
     
    She found that dealing with her dad was less confusing, but just as painful . The grief had cut him to ribbons inside, but that was rarely visible . Instead, he had become his wife’s shield . If anyone got too close to her mother’s grief, he’d shut them down. Abby knew that he loved both of them fiercely, now more than ever . Her own pain ran deep, but so did her strength. Her dad knew she was strong enough to handle the situation . But since neither of them was as confident about her mother, he spent most of his time in the role of spouse-protector .
     
    Abby didn’t believe that telling them about her dream would help, but she knew it could hurt, so she kept the nightly terrors to herself. She also was painfully aware that the long nights and dark circles would catch up with her eventually .
     
    I just hope I can stop that wicked old man before then.
     

Chapter 4
     
    With each stair he climbed, Martin’s feeling of déjà vu grew stronger. Of course, he’d climbed these steps many times before but t oday it felt different . Something was a little bit off. He couldn’t pinpoint it — just a nagging feeling of concern .
     
    The steps led to his daughter’s dorm room on the sixth floor . He rarely took the elevator ; climbing these stairs was his only regular workout .
     
    Maybe not a work out by most standards . B ut since I visit almost every weekend , at least it is regular.
     
    He paused to catch his breath at the clean, well-lit f ourth- floor landing . The stairw ell was silent, as usual . Fire drills were the only reason the dorm’s inhabitants would bother with the stairs.
     
    “Ought to be,” he mused, “with what I am paying in tuition!”
     
    The red emergency phon e gleamed in contras t to the brightly lit walls around it . He leaned on the wall next to the phone and cleared his throat . The echo catapulted to the ground level, and then bounced back up at him .
     
    He turned and grabbed the cool steel railing, pulling himself up the last two flights of stairs . Opening the fire door , he was relieved to be out of the sterile glare of the stairwell lights . Here in the hallway, the lights were much more subdued , and t he carpet was a welcome relief from the unyielding steel steps.
     
    “All’s quiet here,” he thought . No echoing of footsteps on stairs, no clinking discord as his metal watchband hit the steel railing . Just calm lights, soothing tufted wool and quiet.
     
    “Since when is a girl ’ s dorm itory quiet on a Friday night?” he asked himself.
     
    Where were the pounding bass, the shrill buzzes and beeps of two dozen smart phones and laptops?  Why was there no giggling, no chattering from the twenty-something girls who lived on this floor with his daughter Maggie ? He had expected girl s