Nightshade by John Saul Read Free Book Online Page B

wife’s question. “Maybe we can talk about it next week, or the week after. But not tonight. Not if it means going through what we’ve been going through every night this week.”
    He left the guest room and went through the master bedroom to his closet. Taking out his suitcase, he began to pack. Twice, he almost changed his mind, almost took the clothes out of the suitcase and hung them back in the closet. But what good would it do? If he stayed, he wouldn’t be able to keep silent, wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from trying to protect his family from the wounds Emily Moore inflicted nearly every time she spoke.
    At least if he left — even for just a few days — the two people who meant the most to him would no longer be caught in the jaws of a trap with the teeth sinking in from both directions. Then, in a few days — certainly no more than a week — he and Joan could talk again.
    Reluctantly, he finished packing. He paused at the closed door to Matt’s room, wondering if he should try to explain why he was leaving. But even as he stood in the hall outside, he could see the hurt that would come into the boy’s eyes, the hurt that would melt his resolve in an instant. Better just to go, and try to explain it all to Matt tomorrow, or perhaps the next day.
    He paused at the door to the guest room too, wanting to see Joan one more time, to put his arms around her and protect her from her mother’s wrath. But as he reached for the doorknob he heard Emily’s strident voice once again. As he felt his fury rise again — a fury he was as helpless to control as Emily Moore was helpless to control either her illness or her tongue — he made himself turn away from the door.
    Let them be,
he told himself.
At least for tonight, don’t put any more pressure on them.
Clutching the suitcase tightly, he hurried down the stairs and out of the house that was the only home he’d ever known. As he backed the Audi out of the carriage house a few minutes later, he glanced up to the window of the guest room that had been given over to the memory of the woman who lived only in the diseased mind of Emily Moore. He saw his wife standing in the window, looking down at him. As their gazes held, she shrugged her shoulders helplessly and mouthed three words:
    She’s my mother!
    Then, without waiting to see what he would do, she turned away.
    *                                     *                                     *
    MATT TOSSED RESTLESSLY in bed, rolling first one way, then the other, pushing the blankets down, then pulling them up again. Finally he gave up trying to sleep.
    Maybe he’d feel better if he went downstairs and got something to eat.
    Clad only in his bathrobe — the thick velour one his stepfather had given him for Christmas last year — he slipped out into the hall and headed toward the stairs.
    Everything about the house felt different tonight. Part of it was having his grandmother there. At first — the day after the fire — he’d thought it felt different because there was someone besides the three of them in the house. In a few days, he’d told himself, they’d all be used to having Gram in the house, and things would be just like they always were.
    It hadn’t happened. Instead, as each day crept by, he felt the tension between his parents growing. They tried to hide it from him, but even though they weren’t exactly fighting, he knew they weren’t getting along.
    And tonight his father had left.
    Matt had watched him from the window, seen him stow his suitcase in the trunk of the Audi, back the car out of the garage, then look up at the house for a few seconds, and drive away. At first he told himself that his stepfather would come back. He was just angry, and when he got over it, he’d return home. But as the minutes had turned into hours and he’d listened as the big clock at the foot of stairs tolled midnight, he knew his