Twilight Child Read Online Free Page A

You’ve never been to Dundalk.” It was a working-class
section of Baltimore, actually a bit of a joke in some circles, which triggered
in Frances a pride in it that it didn’t deserve.
    Â â€œActually, I
did go once. After you told me where you lived. I found your place, and I
wanted to come up and visit you, but I didn’t have the courage.”
    Â â€œCourage? You
needed courage?”
    Â â€œCross my
heart.”
    Â â€œSo now you
know.”
    Â â€œKnow what?”
    Â â€œThat Dundalk
is different. In two words, the pits.”
    Â â€œI didn’t
think so. I thought it had character. An honest place.” He hesitated. “It
doesn’t pretend to be what it isn’t. Besides, you live there, and that made it
important to me.”
    Â â€œReally,
Peter. There is a difference. I don’t mean age. Thirteen years is no big deal.
But how about mental distance? Here you are with I don’t know how many college
degrees, and I just barely got out of high school. You know very little about
me. Very little.”
    Â â€œI know what
my heart tells me.”
    Â â€œHow do you
know you can trust it? Engineers don’t think like that. Do they?”
    Â â€œAll right
then. Let me explain the way an engineer thinks. I know I have this
need . . . to be with someone . . . to love
someone . . . to share with someone . . . to love
and protect and support . . . to make me live at optimum
potential. I know that’s my missing link. So, subconsciously, I surely have
been looking around. Ever since . . . well, I won’t go into that
again. Then you cross my path. Aha, something in my engineer’s mind reacts.
Even engineers have instincts. That’s it, I acknowledge to myself after giving
the matter a great deal of thought. . . . I have found the bit
of machinery, the device, that eliminates the missing link.”
    Â Yes, she
thought with a sudden burst of emotion, that’s it exactly. The missing link.
Was it possible for her to find it as well? In Peter? Yet she had been deprived
of love and sharing and friendship for so long, she distrusted her own sense of
need. She did not, however, distrust her growing feeling of confidence. She
had, after all, seriously engaged this man’s full attention. Considering her
long history of disappointments, that was no small achievement.
    Â â€œHow can you
be so sure?”
    Â â€œI’ve been
programmed to know.”
    Â â€œPeople
aren’t computers.”
    Â â€œThank God.”
He reached out and took her hand. “So there. I’ve declared myself and my
intentions. So that’s my half of the equation. What’s yours?”
    Â â€œMine?” She
rolled the question around in her mind, watching him as he waited eagerly for
her answer.
    Â â€œI want the
best for my son.” She had expected some sign of discouragement. None came.
    Â â€œGranted. But
what about you?”
    Â Whatever was
happening, it was going too fast for her to comprehend. She felt slightly
disoriented by the speed. So far, except for Tray, life had been a maze of dead
ends. Nothing had turned out in even the remotest proximity to her dreams.
    Â â€œLet’s
postpone me, Peter,” she sighed. “For the time being.”
    Â â€œWhen you’re
looking at forty, things go much faster,” he said. “Time gets more precious.
I’ve just stood up to be counted. Could you at least tell me where you stand?”
    Â â€œI’m not
sure,” she said honestly. With Chuck it had all seemed so simple. There had
seemed to be less at risk. She had been living with Uncle Walter and his
family, hating the sense of obligation and charity with which she had had to
contend. He had a bakery in Timonium, and she had worked long hours there all
through high school for room and board and spending money. She had felt