The Astral Read Online Free

she knew left mother and husband uneasy.
    â€œOh, they’re not....” Sandra hesitated. Part of her wanted to let the mistake stand, but she found that she couldn’t. “They aren’t from me.” Catherine raised a questioning eyebrow. “They’re from Jack. Jack McKenzie.” She didn’t add that they had been coming every week for nearly a month.
    â€œMcKenzie?” Walter said. “I didn’t even know he was back in town, did you?” The look he gave Catherine was accusing.
    â€œI’ve rather been out of circulation.” She took the note from the roses and read it.
    â€œWhat the hell does he want?”
    She handed him the note. It was simple to the point of austerity: “My sincere sympathy. Jack McKenzie.”
    Jack McKenzie. As if he needed to add his last name. As if she might have forgotten who he was. She suddenly remembered hearing his voice in that dying moment. That was why she had kept the memory of that incident so resolutely locked away inside her mind, why she had mentioned it to no one. To remember that eerie moment was to remember Jack, and she didn’t want to think of Jack; wouldn’t think of him. That, surely, was the feather that would tip her over the edge into the bottomless pit if anything would.
    Walter took the card, read it for a long moment as though the message it contained was a lengthy one. “Have you seen him?” he asked finally.
    She sighed. “I haven’t spoken to Jack since he left thirteen years ago.”
    He was on the verge of saying something further, and thought better of it. Instead, he crumpled up the card and threw it violently into the wastebasket by the desk.
    â€œDid I hear a baaing sound?” Sandra asked. “I do believe there’s a lamb stew calling for my attention.”
    She left the room to give them tactful space for anything that needed saying. There was, she thought, quite a bit of that, none of which she needed to hear.
    Whatever that might have been, however, remained unsaid in a silence that eddied around husband and wife. Catherine went to the bay window and stared out at the back garden. The flowers were wilted, the grass brown from lack of water, the leaves of the maple tree hung down dispiritedly. She supposed it was a measure of her healing that she could even notice such things, though she hadn’t yet reached the point of caring much.
    â€œI’d better get to the restaurant,” Walter said to her back. “If you have any...if you need anything, call me on my cell.”
    â€œI’ll be all right,” she said again. Relenting, if only slightly, she came to give him a perfunctory kiss.
    When he had gone, when she heard the car door slam, heard the Buick pull out of the driveway and move off down the street; when she was sure he wasn’t coming back but was truly on his way to the restaurant he owned in Santa Monica, she went to the wastebasket and retrieved the card, smoothing it out. She too studied it for a long while, as if seeking some coded message invisible to the undiscerning eye.
    They had been rivals, Walter and Jack, if unequal ones. It had always been Jack who had ruled in her heart, though she liked Walter well enough, and felt kindly toward him for his unrequited love.
    â€œYou’re sweet. I do like you, honestly,” was the best she could give him then, and that, of course, was not enough for a man in love. Even as she said it, she was aware of its inadequacy.
    What can I do, she asked herself? She couldn’t help being in love with Jack anymore than Walter could help being in love with her. Not just love, either: her feeling for Jack had been a burning, an overwhelming passion that never left her for a moment.
    Maybe, she sometimes thought even then, more passion than love. Waking or sleeping, he was always there. She had only to close her eyes and see him drawn in flames upon her lids: the dense dark curls of his hair,