The year She Fell Read Online Free Page A

would say if she were ill. She was of that stiff-upper-lip generation who always responded I’m just fine, thank you . She added, “But the college is doing some expanding, and I’ve been talking to President Urich about perhaps helping out with a contribution. You know, if your Sarah goes there next year, it will be the 7 th generation of Wakefields at Loudon.”
    Sarah could do better than a tiny old liberal arts college hanging off a mountain in West Virginia . The University of Chicago , maybe, or St. Johns —“She does have other schools on her list, Mother.”
    “Yes, but she’s always loved visiting here and walking through the campus, and that she’s even considering it makes me remember again how important the college is to our family. And so I thought about a large contribution—well, it’s not something I want to do without talking to my daughters, of course. But I would like to make a decision while the fund-drive is going on.”
    Grimly I recalled Merilee’s mention of a young college boyfriend. I could just imagine how attentive a fundraiser would be to a wealthy widow with a family tradition of supporting the college—and three daughters who seldom came home to visit. Especially if the wealthy widow might be fading a bit mentally—“Why don’t I call Laura and Theresa, and see if—”
    A rap on my window distracted me.
    It was Tom. He was standing beside my car, his hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans. I said into the phone, “Mother, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    Once I’d stashed the phone in my purse, I rolled the window down six inches or so. “Yes?”
    “Come on out. Let’s take a walk.”
    I glanced around the church parking lot. Only Tom’s Jeep and my Volvo were left in the growing dusk. “Are you planning on telling me everything?”
    His eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing left to tell.”
    He expected me to be satisfied with that. It was my duty, for the good of the marriage.
    Rebellion spurted through me. I was sick of duty. And I didn’t want to go on feeling responsible for a marriage I no longer recognized. “I’m going to a hotel. I’ll call you in the next couple days.” And then I raised the window, put the car into gear, and drove off and left him standing there.
    For five miles, it felt good. I drove out of town, just so I wouldn’t have to stop and decide where I was going. A hotel. That would work. Anything would be better than going home and confronting Tom in his name-rank-and-serial-number-only mode.
    I spared a thought for that boy Brian. Where was he staying tonight? What was he thinking now? The mother he thought he had found turned out to be a mirage. The father had no attention for him. My sympathy was stirred—but no. It was too easy to stir my sympathy. I should be more like Tom and focus on protecting myself from this assault.
    I should go home. Home to Wakefield . Get away from here for a few days. Deal with Mother. She’d be all alone in that old house over the river, without Merilee to tend her. Mother was 69. I always thought of her as formidable in the extreme, but I’d seen several parishioners fade mentally at that age. That’s when the richer ones started attracting all sorts of attention, even from the most respectable sorts of fundraisers. I’d had to rein back the church’s stewardship chair a couple times when he heard that some elderly church member was getting a bit confused and willing to pay this year’s pledge twice or even three times.
    And I could go up in the attic and look for that box of journals.
    And maybe I’d figure out how the husband I thought I knew so well could keep such a secret from me for so long.

CHAPTER THREE

    I didn’t do things like this—run off, no luggage, and no plan. I didn’t do unexpected things, like suddenly produce an adult son.
    I pulled into the mall parking lot, and in the twenty minutes before it closed, bought a few changes of clothes and everything else I