Out in the Country by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online Page B

table or chair. Kathy and Graham weren’t taking much to their far smaller bungalow, but it was still enough to notice.
    The house felt empty, Jess thought, even though it was still full of belongings. The spirit of it had left somehow.
    She smiled to herself, shaking her head. Or perhaps she was just being fanciful. Melancholy. Considering her mood recently, it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.
    “It’s strange, now that we’re actually leaving,” Kathy said quietly. “We’ve been talking about it for ages, and we settled on the bungalow months ago, but now...”
    “It’s real,” Jess finished softly. She knew how that felt; it was how she felt when she’d walked through the hotel in Perthshire, the keys jangling in her pocket. Except that wasn’t real, in the end. This was.
    “Yes, I suppose that’s it,” Kathy said. She glanced around the living room with its big stone hearth and squashy chairs, everything looking empty and yet somehow expectant. For a moment Jess could imagine what Kathy was thinking, remembering all the days and years they’d spent in this room, memories of happy Christmas mornings and drowsy summer evenings. A lifetime, contained in a room.
    Then Kathy gave herself a little shake and smiled brightly. “Well, I put the coffee on in the kitchen. Let’s have a cup before we go.”
    They trooped to the back of the house where the kitchen also sported some noticeably empty spaces, and Kathy poured them all cups of coffee.
    “Where’s Graham?” Lynne asked as she took a grateful sip.
    “Upstairs, saying his goodbye no doubt.” Kathy frowned. “Although I wanted him to check with the mover about going over to the bungalow. I don’t want them unloading everything into the driveway.”
    “Shall I fetch him?” Lynne asked, and Kathy shook her head.
    “No, I’ll go. You stay here and enjoy your coffee.”
    Kathy went up the backstairs as Jess and Lynne sat at the big pine table, sipping their coffee and gazing out at the backyard, the still bright green grass now half-carpeted with leaves.
    A sense of peace stole over Jess, catching her by surprise. She was relaxed, she realised. She was even--almost--happy. Then it was shattered by Kathy’s cry of distress echoing through the house.
    Lynne jumped up from the table, and so did Jess.
    “Kathy--”
    Kathy ran downstairs, her hair in wisps about her pale face. “Someone call 911,” she cried, her voice breathless with panic. “It’s Graham!”
     

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Lynne took a sip of tepid coffee before thrusting the styrofoam cup away. She glanced at Kathy, seated next to her on the old vinyl sofa, her face frozen, the look in her eyes chillingly remote. They had barely spoken since they’d arrived at the hospital; Graham had been sequestered in the Intensive Care Unit, and a nurse with too much sympathy in her eyes had told them a doctor would see them ‘when he had news’.
    News, Lynne thought disconsolately. Good news or bad news? Or just... news?
    “I knew this was too much for him.” When Kathy finally spoke her voice was little more than a reedy whisper. “The house was too much for us too, but just getting out of it...” She shook her head, blinking back tears that filled her eyes anyway. “I knew he’d exert himself too much, he always does. It’s why I wanted to move in the first place...”
    Lynne placed a hand on Kathy’s shoulder, saying nothing. She knew only too well how little one could say. She’d been there herself a year and a half ago. The waiting, the recriminations, the unreal feeling that this couldn’t be happening, even as you imagined it happening a hundred times. The fear, the uncertainty, and then the despair.
    She didn’t want that for Kathy or Graham. Not yet. Not when the future, for all of them, had seemed so bright and brimming.
    “I can’t imagine life without him,” Kathy said, her voice finally breaking, and Lynne squeezed her shoulder.
    “And you might not have to,” she