Sandman Read Online Free Page B

blood and her face looked like she’d gone the distance with Mike Tyson. Apparently, when he couldn’t get her off him, the guy punched her until she was unconscious.”
    “Oh, my,” Jenny said, “were you able to...fix him up?”
    “Let me put it this way, Jen. She didn’t swallow her tongue.”
    Everyone laughed. Everyone but Will.
    “God, Al,” Nina said, touching his arm. “You’re wasting your time in medicine. You should be on the stand-up circuit.”
    “ Not me,” Al said. “My twin brother, he’s the comedian.”
    “You’re a twin?” Nina said.
    “Identical. Looking, anyway. My brother’s a lunatic.”
    Nina said, “That’s so amazing. I’ve got identical twins, Jeffrey and Gerry. They’re five.”
    Al said, “Oh, lord,” and spent the next half hour regaling Nina with tales of his exploits growing up as a twin.
    Things began to wind down after that. Paul went up with the women. After finishing his beer Al went up too, leaving Jack and Will to put out the fire.
    “Not feeling well?” Jack said.
    Will was glaring into the fire, crunching a beer can in one massive fist. “Fuck, no,” he said without looking up. “I’m peachy.”
    “Just asking,” Jack said. He nudged a branch into the coal bed with the toe of his shoe, then said, “I wonder how Rob’s making out.”
    “Must be tough,” Will said, warming a little. “Could’ve happened to any one of us. That’s the bitch about this job, ain’t it, Jack?” Jack agreed that it was. “You think his ass is in a sling over this?”
    “Rob did everything by the book. No one can fault him on that.”
    But Will had checked out again.
    “Okay,” Jack said, standing, “I’m heading up. Coming?”
    “Gonna finish my beer,” Will said. “He patted the cooler by his feet. “Maybe slay a few more.”
    “Suit yourself. Just kick that fire out before you come up, okay big guy?”
    “You got it, Jack. Sweet dreams.”
    When Jack was out of sight Will drained his beer, tossed the empty into the lake and tabbed a fresh one.
    * * *
    Cerise turned her back to him in the dark, the bed squeaking under her weight. Paul could hear her sobbing into her pillow.
    “It’s not you,” he told her, thinking how clichéd that sounded but unable to come up with anything better. He felt he should touch her, try to comfort her somehow. He was so clumsy at this. “It’s me,” he said. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”
    She turned to face him, her warm hand, wet with tears, touching his shoulder. Paul shuddered a little.
    “Have you seen a doctor?”
    “It’s...not that kind of problem,” Paul said, surprised when she said, “Oh.” He hadn’t thought she’d understand.
    She said, “So why do you bother? Trying, I mean.”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “All right. Do you want me to sleep someplace else?”
    “No. I’m okay with it if you are.”
    She turned away from him again. “I’m going to sleep then. I’m drunk.”
    “Goodnight,” Paul said. There was no response.
    In minutes she was snoring softly and Paul closed his eyes, thinking of Jack across the bonfire, the orange firelight making his eyes gleam.
    * * *
    Near dawn, Will Armstrong stood next to the bed on which his wife lay sleeping and gazed at her moonlit features. So beautiful , he thought, a bitter melancholy drenching his heart. His love for Nina hadn’t diminished an ounce in all the years he’d known her. If anything, it had intensified. In this soft, somehow consecrated light, she looked as breathtaking as she had the first time he’d seen her, strolling across the playing field behind Glebe Collegiate. He learned later that she’d moved to Ottawa from Pittsburgh only two weeks before, and that she’d already been accepted as a junior on the cheerleading squad. As Glebe’s star linebacker Will would be certain to meet her...but he’d known even then, as she climbed the school steps and vanished inside, that one day he would make her his