Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead Read Free Book Online

wind-down.
    “Who?”
    “Liesel.”
    Joan appears from the kitchen, dribbling formula from a baby bottle onto the inside of her wrist and licking it off. “Really?”
    “Yeah.”
    She picks Harry up, uncovering a baby-sized patch of sweat on Jacob’s shirt. “It’s a thousand degrees in here,” he says.
    “Mmm.” She settles cross-legged on the couch with a towel over her shoulder and the baby reclining against her arm. Idly, Jacob turns a rattle over in his fingers, watching her, wanting her to look at him. Her contentment is wrapped so tightly around Harry that he can never be certain it extends to him, too.
    He gets up and goes, without much optimism, to search for dinner. As he does most nights, he pours out a bowl of cornflakes. The last of the milk is not quite enough to cover them. “Do you think you’d be able to make a grocery run tomorrow?” he says, sittingbeside her on the couch and wiping a dirty spoon on his shirt. “I’m not asking for a steak dinner. Just soup or something. Something I can heat up.”
    “Sure.” She raises her eyebrows at Harry and makes her lips into an O, mirroring his face as he suckles the bottle.
    “You know, never mind. I’ll go myself.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    He wants to pinch her, to hide Harry behind his back, to say something that will amaze her. Instead, he says, casually, “I think Liesel still has a thing for me.”
    “Really? Why?”
    “Is it such a mystery? I’m a catch. Was a catch.”
    “No, I meant why do you think that?”
    “Oh. I don’t know—I could just tell.”
    Finally she looks at him, perplexed. “Jacob, are you trying to make me jealous?”
    He watches Harry work at the bottle, his small hands coming up to caress it as Joan holds it. “Yes. I am. I’m sorry. It’s stupid.”
    “It’s not stupid ,” she says. “It’s just not necessary.”
    “Here, give him to me.”
    She passes Harry and the bottle to him without disconnecting one from the other and drapes the towel over his shoulder. He wants her to watch the two of them at the same time, to see that they are part of the same picture. “Maybe,” he says, “it’s just that when you want someone for so long, and then you get that person magically out of nowhere, you have trouble believing it’s for real.”
    She smiles at him, brightly, the way she does when she is nervous, and the creeping in of her old skittishness reassures him more than anything she could say. “I think you miss the crush,” she says. “I’m probably a letdown because life is still life. Just with less suspense, and a baby.”
    “You’re not a letdown,” he says, brushing Harry’s powdery cheek with a finger. “I’d rather have you than wish for you.”
    The exact mechanism by which Joan became pregnant is somethingthat bothers him from time to time. She had said she was on the pill, and then, later, when he’d asked how this could have happened, she said something about having had a stomach flu right before she came to see him, and maybe the pill doesn’t work when you throw it up. He can’t think of a reason why she would have done it on purpose.
    He says, “But I worry that you’re not happy. Sometimes it feels like you’re a fugitive hiding out here, like you’re in the witness protection program. I keep thinking I’m going to come home and find a note. That’s the new suspense.”
    Her feet burrow under his thigh, always seeking warmth. “I’m happy.”
    He is not sure he believes her. “Good,” he says, patting the tops of her feet. “I’m glad.”
    December 10, 1970
Dear Joan ,
Well, I’ve been drinking. I should say that right away. I was at a party with the girl I’ve been seeing (yes, I’ve been seeing a girl), and we walked along the river, and then I told her I was feeling sick, which is true but really I wanted to come back here to my room and write you a letter. I wonder if I’ll see you when I’m home for Christmas. Where are you? I’m sending this to your