Three Strong Women Read Online Free Page A

stupid!
    Shame on her.
    But what words could she find sufficiently precise to comprehend the anger and disquiet that she’d felt two or three days before, during one of those family arguments that epitomized for her Jakob’s nasty underhandedness and her own feeblemindedness, she who had so aspired to simplicity and straightforwardness, she who had been so afraid of twisted thinking while she and Lucie lived alone together that she’d run a mile at the slightest hint of it, determined never to expose her child to eccentric or perverse behavior?
    But she had been ignorant of the fact that evil can have a kindly face, that it could be accompanied by a delightful little girl, and that it could be prodigal in love—though, in fact, Jakob’s vague, impersonal, and inexhaustible love cost him nothing; she knew that now.
    As on every other morning, Norah had gotten up first, made Grete and Lucie’s breakfast, and gotten them ready for school. Jakob, who normally only woke up after the three of them had left the house, emerged from the bedroom that morning just as Norah was finishing her hair in the bathroom.
    The girls were putting on their shoes, and what should he do but start teasing them, undoing one girl’s laces and stealing the other’s shoe, running and hiding it under the sofa with howls of laughter like a mocking child, oblivious of the time and the distress of thegirls, who, amused at first, ran around the apartment in pursuit, begging him to stop his tricks, on the verge of tears but trying to smile because it was all supposed to be comical and in good fun. Norah had to intervene and order him, like a dog, in that faux-gentle tone, pulsing with suppressed anger, that she used only with Jakob, to bring the shoe back at once, which he did with such good grace that Norah, and the girls too, suddenly looked like petty, sad women whom an impish teaser had only tried to cheer up.
    Norah knew that she had to hurry now or be late for the first appointment of the day, so she refused tartly when Jakob offered to go with them. But the girls had encouraged him and backed him up, so Norah, weary and demoralized all of a sudden, gave in. Standing silently in the hallway with their coats, shoes, and scarves on, they had to wait for him to get dressed and join them. He had a way of being gay and lighthearted that seemed forced, almost threatening, to Norah. Their eyes had met as she glanced anxiously at her watch. All she saw in Jakob’s look was cruel spite, bordering on hardness, under his stubbornly effervescent manner.
    It made her head spin, wondering what kind of man she’d allowed into her home.
    He’d then taken her in his arms and embraced her more tenderly than anyone had ever done. Feeling miserable, she chided herself: Who can enjoy a taste of tenderness and then willingly give it up?
    They had then trudged through the muddy slush on the pavement and clambered into Norah’s little car. It was cold and uncomfortable.
    Jakob had gotten into the back with the girls (as was his annoying habit, Norah thought: as an adult, wasn’t his place in the front,next to her?), and while she let the engine warm up, she’d heard him whisper to the girls that they needn’t fasten their seat belts.
    “Oh, why needn’t we?” Lucie had asked in astonishment.
    “Because we’re not going far,” he’d said in his silly, excited voice.
    Norah had gripped the steering wheel, and her hands had begun to tremble.
    She’d ordered the girls to fasten their seat belts at once, the fury she felt against Jakob hardening her tone. Her anger had seemed aimed at them, the unfairness of which Grete and Lucie had expressed to Jakob with a pained look.
    “We’re really not going far,” he’d said. “Anyway, I’m not going to fasten my seat belt.”
    Norah pulled out.
    She, who made a point of never being late, was certainly late now.
    She was on the brink of tears.
    She was a lost, pathetic creature.
    After some hesitation, Grete and