Crazy in Love by Luanne Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

course not. But she’s a day’s work, Georgie. I’m not that old. If I weren’t taking care of Pem, maybe I could travel or teach or something.”
    “Mom, you know Clare and I would help out.”
    “No, she’s my mother. It’s my responsibility.”
    “She’s my grandmother.”
    Honora regarded me with blank eyes. “She wets her bed.”
    This came as an enormous shock. “You’re kidding.”
    “No. She’s done it twice this week. She can’t take baths by herself, so I have to bathe her. We’ve got mice because she makes herself a little sandwich, then hides it when she hears me coming—it seems that old people feel guilty about eating. Then she forgets where she hid it. I find these dried crusts all over the house.”
    “I know about the sandwiches—I find them in my house every time she visits.”
    We heard Pem’s bedsprings creaking. Then her feet shuffling into slippers, then the window being opened.
    “How’s your report coming?” Honora asked. “It must be due soon.”
    “I still have a week. I’m typing it over now.”
    “I can’t wait to read it. Did you read that Dr. Tuchman was granted custody of the children?”
    “Yes,” I said, thinking of how Mona must feel. If he wanted custody, that meant he was leaving her. I remembered that day in her foyer, the small hope she had felt because her husband didn’t love his mistress. But that didn’t mean he loved Mona, either. I watched my mother getting Pem’s breakfast ready. “What do you think of her story? Can you understand how she could have stabbed Celeste Stone?”
    “Mmmm, I suppose,” she said, pouring orange juice.
    “I mean, how did you feel when you found out Dad was having an affair?” My heart went faster as I asked the question I’d been waiting to ask.
    “Well, I didn’t want to kill her, if that’s what you mean,” Honora said, laughing a little. “She was very unimportant to me. She could have been anyone. It was your father. He shouldn’t have done that to us. It was humiliating.”
    “You mean people knew?”
    “I have no idea. But they might have. That idea made me furious. The main thing was that Timmy betrayed me. He cut himself away from us by seeing that woman.”
    “Who was she?”
    Honora was carefully scraping thin curls of butter from the cold block. “Alice Billings.”
    I gasped. “You’re kidding! Mrs. Billings? I didn’t like her at all.” Suddenly I remembered the time Mrs. Billings had driven Rachel and me to the skating pond and my father was waiting for us. I hadn’t expected to see him. After helping me lace my skates, he had said he was going to sit in Mrs. Billings’s car and watch me. It had been cold, with snow on the hills and tree branches. I remember skating as daringly fast as I could, wishing I was in Mrs. Billings’s nice warm car with her and my father.
    “She was a scrawny little mouse,” Honora said. “She worked as a research assistant at the Fisheries. I used to wonder how your father could go for such a boring person, not pretty, without even an interesting job. But then it occurred to me that he wanted someone who would adore him. Who would think he was a real catch.”
    “He was one,” I said, feeling strangely defensive of my father.
    “That may be true, but it’s irrelevant. He behaved like a bastard. I never trusted him again after I found out.”
    “But you stayed with him.”
    “That’s true. I stayed with him for three years afterwards. I’d probably be with him still if he were still alive.”
    “Why? How could you stay with a man you didn’t trust?”
    Honora smiled her beautiful square smile. “I was raised a Catholic, dearie. Those rules stick, even when they stop making sense. Plus I’m half Irish. And you know they say Ireland is a vale of tears.”
    “That’s why? That’s the reason?” I asked.
    Honora’s smile collapsed. “And I loved your father. I loved him very much.”
    “G’morning,” Pem said sweetly, shuffling over to kiss