Custody Read Online Free

wife’s.
    In May, even in June, the man had worn a suit and tie, and Kelly had admired that, too: the respect suggested by his attire and the attitude—could you call it optimism?—implied that an invisible spirit was aware of this, the person for whom he mourned, or perhaps God. Or perhaps he dressed so formally only for his own awareness, in which case she admired him more.
    He was a tall, broad-shouldered, massive man with a head of silver-blond hair. She’d never been close enough to see the color of his eyes, but she’d bet they were bright blue, Viking eyes, the color of the oceans his ancestors once sailed to fight with bronze spear and shield, conquering countries and earning names such as Fergus the Brave or Ivan the Stouthearted.
    She knew she spent too much time thinking about this man.
    But how could she help it? Every Sunday morning Kelly visited her mother’s grave.
    She had done this since her mother’s death two months ago, and she thought she might very well continue to do this every week for the rest of her life, because the moment she passed through the Gothic gates of Forest Hills Cemetery, she felt lighter and peaceful. She could be herself here; she could think whatever she wanted to think, or not think at all and simply sit listening to the birds sing. She could catch her breath.
    By nature energetic and decisive, by profession critical, Kelly lived according to more rules, standards, and goals than most people did. In addition was the irrevocable, irreducible fact of her height, a physical reality with psychological consequences. She was six feet tall, and had been the tallest in her class and tortured for it ever since kindergarten, when Donny Ramos, in a burst of creativity, invented the taunt: “Kelly makes me laugh! She’s tall as a giraffe!” A fierce kind of pride had forced her then as well as now to stand erect, never to stoop, to keep her head high and her shoulders back even if it did, as she grew into her teens, accentuate the shelf of bosom that the toughest sports bra could not conceal.
    In the cemetery her height didn’t matter, nor did the size of her bosom, the gravity of her profession, the magnitude of her goals, the pettiness of her vanities. Here she was just herself, with many talents and good qualities, and, she supposed, as many flaws as any normal person on this earth.
    This morning in the very middle of July steamed with heat. She had parked her car behind the chapel, waved hello to the groundskeeper, and headed up past the Bell Tower along Mulberry Avenue. She wore a short blue sundress and for the sake of coolness had pulled her pale hair up into a careless clump on top of her head and fastened it with a clip. As she walked, long tendrils escaped, curling down around her ears, tickling her skin. Absentmindedly she tucked them back up, and a few minutes later they fell out all over again. She didn’t notice, really, or care. Six days of the week her hair was immaculately tamed. This morning, she was free.
    She had strolled along Sweet Briar Path, Magnolia Path, Cowslip Path—she loved these names—past Lake Hibiscus, up Fountain Avenue and Tulip Path, until she came to Lilac Path. Here rested not a soaring marble angel or a sober gray tombstone but a small sturdy boulder of granite glistening with pink quartz.
    The stone marked Kelly’s mother’s grave. Next to it lay the modest flat plaques marking the graves of Ingrid’s first husband, Otto, and his mother and father. Interesting, Kelly thoughtbitterly, that Ingrid chose to be buried here, that her second husband didn’t object. But why would he object? The plot had been bought years and years ago when Ingrid and Otto married. It had been waiting for her. It saved René Lambrousco from having to pay for a plot.
    Kelly had folded her long legs and sunk cross-legged onto the grass. Closing her eyes, she urged bitterness from her heart and said a prayer. Then she merely sat, letting the worries of the past week