Facets by Barbara Delinsky Read Free Book Online Page B

if it does, I’ll know that I’ve got all this wonderful money in the bank that I can use to keep from starving.”
    Pam pictured him grinning that broad, self-confident grin of his. Leaning against the wall, she smiled. But her smile soon faded, because Patricia wasn’t as easily reassured.
    “But why not invest it and make even more money? Why not diversify? If you branch into another field, you can be in Boston more. I need you there, Gene. When I’m alone, I start imagining things. I get very nervous.” She was speaking more quickly. Even from the distance, Pam could hear the tremor in her voice.
    Eugene must have heard it too and been touched. “Now, now, Patsy . . .” He went on, but his voice faded to a gentle murmur, too low for Pam to hear at the top of the stairs.
    Telling herself that things were in hand now that her father knew her mother’s fears, Pam went to bed. She heard no more voices, and if her parents slept together in the large master suite, she was asleep before they climbed the stairs.
    She and Patricia stayed the weekend, and by the time they headed back to Boston on Sunday afternoon, Pam felt optimistic that her parents’ differences had been ironed out. “You’ll be down to see us soon?” she asked after giving Eugene a last hug and kiss.
    “Soon, Pammy girl. Real soon.”
    He kept his word. He was back in Boston the following week, but it was for a single night. Then he was gone. Patricia was more disappointed than usual and therefore more nervous. That added to Pam’s disappointment, because when Patricia was nervous, she turned to John.
    He was, without doubt, Pam decided, one of the coolest people she’d ever known. His hair was always combed, his tie always straight, his posture just so, with one hand in a pocket so that he’d look casual even if he felt tense.
    She could forgive him that, she supposed. What she couldn’t forgive was that he always seemed to know how to put Patricia’s mind at ease, which wasn’t right at all. That was Eugene’s job.
    But Eugene wasn’t there, and the more John filled the gap, the more Patricia sought him out.
    Pam didn’t know what to do. Each time she talked with her father, she begged him to come home, but he always had an excuse. Then vacation came, and she went to Timiny Cove. Patricia joined them for several days, driving up with John when Eugene demanded he come. But when John returned to Boston, so did Patricia.
    Watching her leave, Pam felt a sense of loss. She wasn’t as close to her mother as she used to be. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t laugh together or daydream together or spend days together, just the two of them, the way they once did. Patricia seemed distanced from her, even when they were in the same room. She watched her mother drive away from her and she knew their relationship had changed.
    Unable to blame Eugene, whom she adored, or Patricia, who seemed too distracted, Pam put the responsibility on John.
     

 

    Chapter 4

    J OHN WASN’T SURE JUST WHEN his fear of his father hardened into contempt. It was a gradual process, starting in his early teen years when he formed an elite group of friends, continuing when puberty gave him the confidence of height and a physical par with Eugene, and culminating with his parents’ divorce and his mother’s subsequent death.
    He wasn’t sorry to see the fear go. Long after childhood, he could vividly remember the quaking he’d felt when Eugene’s loud bellow told him that he’d disappointed his father again. Sometimes, it had been the way he looked: “Too new, for pity’s sake.” Sometimes it had been the way he acted: “Starchy, boy, where’s your sense of adventure?” Sometimes it had to do with the business: “What do you mean you don’t want to work in the mine?” It wasn’t only the voice that made him tremble but the flashing eyes and the cheeks that grew red with temper. “You’ve got the whole summer lying out there ahead of you, with