Bodies and Souls by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online Page B

if he could stop by tonight. He said he would come around eight; the newcomers would have gone by then, and Reynolds would surely have had dinner. There would be enough berry pie left from the afternoon to offer him. She looked in the refrigerator: yes, she had remembered to buy enough whipping cream.
    She measured flour into a red crockery bowl and began to mix in the butter she had let soften in the cupboard overnight. The room began to fill with an agreeable brightening warmth from the fireplace. She was aware of how the scene she made would look to anyone coming in: a slender woman with a yellow ribbon in her long brown hair, rolling out piecrust dough on an antique pine table while at one end of the room the fire crackled and nearby on the stove coffee brewed. How warm and attractive her room was, her family was, and perhaps this was why Reynolds Houston wanted to visit.
    She did not know him well. He lived alone and kept to himself and was polite at cocktail and dinner parties, but he was not the sort of man Judy felt comfortable with. There was something chilling about such an immaculate man, Judy thought, and as she lay the dough in the pie pan and carefully crimped the edges into patterned scallops, she felt that old familiar monster, anxiety, stir and wake inside her, in the pit of her stomach, where it always lay in wait. She could not breathe. Why had Reynolds Houston asked to come tonight?
    It could not be because of a simple desire for the company of his fellow man. He had almost nothing in common with Ron, except for the few committees they served on. Perhaps something was wrong. But what could possibly be wrong? Reynolds Houston had no connection with her life that she could think of. Still, the anxiety was now fully aroused within her, and greedy and powerful in its arousal. It bloomed inside her, like a malevolent cloud, filling the cavity of her stomach and chest relentlessly, pushing her breath away. There was no room left inside her for air. Something was wrong. She knew it, and could not get her breath. She gripped the edge of the pine table with both hands and shoved her chin down into her chest to stifle a scream. She gasped, trying to pull air into her lungs, but the anxiety had mushroomed within her and was billowing upward now, blocking her throat. She could not let her son and husband see her like this.
    “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself. “Judy, it’s okay. Just give yourself a minute. You’ll be okay.”
    It was only a matter of steps from the kitchen to the half-bath off the hall. Shekept the Valium in the linen closet in here, with sanitary napkins and tampons and other things the men in her family would find, if not embarrassing, at least not of interest. She kept the Valium in an old Midol bottle next to a small brown prescription bottle which also contained Valium: if anyone cared to check, it seemed the Valium bottle was seldom opened. She took two blue pills out of the Midol bottle and swallowed them immediately—long ago she had taught herself to swallow pills without water. Oh, Valium, dear, sweet, blessed Valium, how she loved it. She knew the drug was a crutch, but the important thing to keep in mind was just that: that she knew she was using it in just that way. She was in control of it. She believed quite firmly that in this case self-knowledge provided sufficient exoneration. She did not believe she was addicted to Valium—she would only be truly addicted if she were not aware of her addiction. As long as she was aware of the frequency of usage, she had the usage under control.
    Besides, she had been using the drug for years under the supervision of a highly qualified and respected psychiatrist. She saw him only once every few months now, but she had been going to him regularly for seven years. He knew almost everything about her there was to know, and he agreed with her that until both her children were grown and gone away, a moderate, controlled use of Valium was