Where or When Read Online Free Page A

family room, off the kitchen. He has been thinking about this for weeks, has reached no conclusions. He likes his house, though it is too grandiose and impractical. The house is frigid in winter, and the plumbing is mystifying—yet it’s an elegant building, even if its nineteenth-century lines have begun to sag. Harriet mows the lawn, keeps the exterior tidy and painted, and minds that Charles has not solved the riddle of the plumbing—his part in this particular unspoken marital bargain.
    Harriet is in the kitchen, wrestling with a large white softball of dough in a mustard-colored bowl. She has on her Sunday clothes—a pink sweatsuit and sneakers—and Charles can see that she hasn’t had her shower yet: Her short, nearly black hair is still matted at one side from sleep, and there are smudges of teal blue below her lower lids. She doesn’t speak as he walks in. He could tell her that he ran into Joe Medeiros, that Medeiros is pulling out of a deal, and that this will mean another stall on the addition, thus eliciting, possibly, a glance of sympathy or, at the very least, a change of subject, but as he watches her kneading the dough angrily, he decides to forgo the solicitation. More than likely, the news will simply frighten her. He puts the doughnuts on the counter, the milk in the fridge. He asks, “Where are the kids?” and she answers, not looking at him, “Outside.”
    He takes the newspaper into a small room off the porch that is a kind of sanctuary, a library if one were to be so formal, which he is not inclined to be. This, too, is a room that could be turned into an office, though it is a bit cramped, and he does not like having to think of giving up his retreat.
    There are books in uneven stacks on the floor of the room, nearly covering the small Oriental Harriet gave him last year for Christmas. Across one of the books is a tie he wore a few days ago. A second pair of dress shoes is in a corner, and for some reason he cannot quite fathom, a pair of jeans is flung over a chair. It is another unspoken marital bargain that Harriet never enters this room, and as a consequence it is seldom cleaned, seldom tidied.
    He drops the heavy Sunday paper on top of his desk, itself awash in inches of unopened mail, half-read magazines, and more books. Slipping the sweatshirt over his head, he tosses it in the direction of the chair with the jeans. On a bookshelf he has his turntable, and he puts on the Brahms Second Piano Concerto, a piece he plays often, never tires of. It seems to him a hopeful concerto, nearly a symphony, appropriate somehow for a Sunday morning, even though the news this particular Sunday morning has not been especially hopeful. Outside, Hadley, his eldest daughter, is squealing as she takes the long, looping ride on the rope he hung for her from the tall walnut, a sail through the air that ends with a whomp in a large, forgiving pile of leaf mulch. Jack, his son, two years younger than Hadley’s fourteen, is with her and is loudly demanding a turn for himself. Charles can see him through the small window of his study, squirming with impatience. He wonders briefly then where Anna, his five-year-old, is—not with them, for he would see or hear her. But he quickly dismisses the query; Harriet will know, will be watching her. For the moment he can relax.
    He picks up his reading glasses from the desk, puts them on. Usually he begins with the magazine: a quick perusal of the cover story, a glance at the recipes, a longer look at the crossword to see if it’s one he might tackle. This week the recipes are about blueberries—not interesting. He would study them if the dishes were Italian or Spanish or Indian. He is the cook in the family, though Harriet likes to bake, and his children often complain that what he concocts is inedible. The cover story is about the savings-and-loan scandal. He will look at that later. He picks up another thin magazine inside