Nora and Liz by Nancy Garden Read Free Book Online Page A

there now.” Her voice caught in her throat.
    “Oh, wow! You okay?”
    “Yes.” She hesitated. “Well, not quite. It’s weird, Jeffie . It’s like—I don’t know. It’s like it’s the shell of me, of us; you know? And Mom and Dad are all around me, Mom especially.”
    There was a pause. Then: “Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. And you can’t sell it, babe, right?”
    “Right. At least not yet,” she said relieved again and understanding that was what had gnawed at her last night, keeping her from sleeping, and had enervated her this morning till she’d started cleaning. “I guess I feel I’d be violating it somehow, if I let other people have it. The real estate agent was here when I arrived, snooping. It was awful seeing her looking the place over like a cat waiting to pounce.” Liz felt herself shiver. “It’s like we’d be selling Mom and Dad, Jeff. And us as kids. Me and Megan, too, a little, our beginning, anyway.”
    “So no sale at all, huh?”
    “Not now. If it’s okay with you. Maybe in a year or so. Unless you really need the money.”
    “Don’t worry about that. It’s okay.”
    “Are you sure you and Susan don’t need it? With Gus and all?”
    “No, we’re fine.”
    “Then if it’s okay with you, I’d like to call off the real estate creep and clean the place up and—and maybe spend the summer here alone,” she added, surprising herself, realizing she could actually do that, there would be nothing to stop her. She could sublet her apartment, buy a car with the money she’d been saving for she was never sure what, and spend a quiet summer figuring things out, recovering from leaving Megan and trying to understand the flaw that had made her run from her; she could try to put herself back together again.
    She heard Jeff’s voice, muffled, saying something away from the phone.
    “Hey, babe,” he said into it a moment later. “I’ve got to go. My secretary’s here now and I’ve got some stupid meeting. Go ahead and do what you want, though. It’s okay.”
    “You’re really, truly sure? About the money?”
    “Yeah, I’m sure. And you know what? I’m kind of glad the old place’ll still be in the family. Maybe we’ll come for a visit, me and Sue and the kid, this summer. How about that? Maybe Gus could get to like the old place, too, who knows? It’s so great for kids.” His voice softened. “I remember, too.”
    “That’d be fine,” Liz said, smiling. “That’d be fine. Only maybe toward the end of the summer? Give me a little time?”
    “Sure, sis. End of summer. Hey, we’ll talk later, okay?”
    “Okay. ’Bye, Jeffie . And thanks. You’re a prince.”
    “Yeah, right. Tell that to my clients! Love you!”
    “Love you, too,” Liz whispered after he’d hung up.
    I wonder if you’re the only person I’ll ever really love, she mused as she replaced the receiver.

Chapter Seven
    The rain had stopped by the next morning, and the lake was still, with no ripples breaking its surface. Liz made herself coffee and took a mug of it down to the dock, where she sat, an old flannel shirt over the long t-shirt in which she’d slept; she dangled her legs over the edge of the dock, drinking her coffee and watching the lake steam as the sun climbed higher. As it rose, a gentle breeze sent tiny catspaws scudding over the water; a fish jumped, two darning needles danced—courting, Liz thought—among the lily pads, and a hawk flew low overhead, then turned abruptly and dropped aggressively into the reeds to her left. Bird voices—wrens, thrushes, some kind of warbler—trilled and called. There was one in particular that Liz couldn’t identify, whose notes cascaded up and down and across its non-human scales; it made Liz smile. She’d forgotten what it was like to wake up with “the lake folk” as Dad had called them whenever he’d joined her.
    She could almost feel him with her now, sitting quietly beside her as he so often had, and for a while she was able to bask in