Facets by Barbara Delinsky Read Free Book Online Page A

on account of the pits. He has to be there.”
    “No,” Pam said, but distantly.
    “Yes’m. If he didn’t spend so much time in Maine, you wouldn’t have all the nice things you do here. Your daddy is a fine man, about as fine as any that comes along. I’m sure that if he had his way he’d be here all the time with you. And your mama.”
    Pam didn’t argue further, though it seemed to her that the last “mama” had been stuck on as an afterthought. She could understand why Marcy would insist that Patricia and Eugene were still deeply in love. Marcy’s own parents had a volatile relationship, if the screaming Pam had heard the one time she’d gone with Marcy to visit was any indication. By comparison, anything was better.
    Pam’s point of comparison, though, was different. Increasingly she could look back on her earliest memories, and, even allowing for the innocence of those first years, she could see the change in the way her parents treated each other. The nice times were fewer and farther between. If Patricia and Eugene were in love, it wasn’t as deep a love as it once had been.
    Pam was convinced that something was wrong, and nothing in the course of the months that followed suggested otherwise. Eugene was in Maine more often than not, which irritated Patricia so much that she made several trips there herself.
    “Do you blame me for wondering?” she asked in a huff one Friday night. She’d taken Pam straight from school and made the three-hour drive without forewarning Eugene.
    In the eyes of a twelve-year-old, his welcome was one of unqualified pleasure, everything Pam had hoped for. The three of them went out for dinner at the nicest restaurant within twenty miles of the Cove, and when they returned they sat for a time in the den catching up on what each had been doing since last they’d been together. When the talk turned to business, Pam quietly left. But the conversation easily carried up the stairs to the hall, where she leaned against the wall papered with Queen Anne’s lace and listened.
    “Yes, I do blame you,” Eugene argued. “When I say that I’m here because I have to be, that should be enough. There was no need for you to race on up just to make sure I was working.”
    “I raced on up because I missed you. It’s been three weeks.”
    “It’s often been three weeks.”
    “But it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be. I need you there.”
    “You nag me there. You’ve got me dressed up and going out every night to some party or ball or art show.”
    “They’re important.”
    “They’re boring.”
    “Those parties and balls and exhibits are where you can make contacts to broaden your base. That’s what you should be doing.”
    Pam heard the tension in her father’s voice as he said, “My business is taking tourmaline from the earth and selling it, and I’m doin’ pretty damn well.”
    “But you could be doing better. Don’t you see? You’re not making the most of your assets. You sell the stones, pay your crew, buy new equipment now and then, and put the rest of the money into the bank. It’s piling up there, Gene, when it should be earning twice as much in another venture.”
    “This sounds familiar. Have you been talking to John?”
    Pam flattened her back against the wall. She knew the answer to that one. She saw the way Patricia had begun to wait for John to come home from work. She heard the discussions they often had over drinks before dinner.
    “Who else do I have to talk with?” Patricia shot back. “You’re never around.”
    “Why do you have to talk with anyone? Why can’t you just trust me?”
    “I
do
trust you, but I get nervous. We have all our eggs in one basket. What if something should happen up here? What if the mine caves in or there’s a flood, or you take the last piece of tourmaline out of the ground and can’t find any more? What will you do then?”
    “If that happens,” Eugene said with renewed patience, “which it won’t, but