Passing Through Paradise by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

new adventures. It was so obvious to me that I naturally assumed your father was on the same page.”
    “So what was Dad’s vision?”
    Dorrie made a little explosive sound of disgust. “Golf or fishing every day with his buddies, while I continue doing all the housework, all the errands, all the groceries, all the cooking, all the bills. Same as I always have. So he gets to retire, and I ‘m in for life without parole.”
    “You two should be able to work it out.” Sandra couldn’t believe how frightening this felt to her. It was a blow in the dark, another loss, another death. Something vital had vanished from her life, and she could never get it back again. “Get him to help more around the house.”
    “I’ve tried. He’s hopeless.”
    “Then learn to play golf so you can go with him.”
    “I’ve tried that, too.
I’m
hopeless.”
    “This is not rocket science, Mom. People who love each other should— “
    “Maybe that’s just it,” Dorrie said, pulling up the hood of her coat. “Maybe, somewhere in the middle of all those years, the love got lost.”
    Her mother’s words made Sandra feel a deep and aching sadness. Love couldn’t be that way, she thought. It just couldn’t fail like that. Then she remembered Victor, and her conviction faltered. Maybe secrets haunted her parents’ marriage, too. Who could really know someone else’s intimate relationship?
    Sandra stared at the restless sea, glossy gray beneath a brooding sky. The whole world was sliding out from beneath her feet, and she had no idea how to pull it all back into its proper place. She was beginning to question her own judgment about everything. The foundation of her family was crumbling. Things she believed to be true turned out to be lies.
    “You can’t let this happen, Mom,” she said, raising her voice above the wind. “You and Dad have to try harder, go to counseling, work this out—”
    “We’re not characters in one of your books, dear,” Dorrie said gently. She slipped her arm around Sandra. “I’m so sorry. But this is my life, or what’s left of it. I have to take this step. It’s really happening, and nothing you say or do will stop it.”
    Sandra saw pieces of her life like bits of colored glass through a kaleidoscope—scattered and splintered, constantly changing. “How long have you been planning this?” she asked.
    “It’s been a long time coming, but we wanted to wait until the business with Victor was over before telling you. Now we’ve all got to move on.”
    The wind whipped up gritty dervishes of sand on the beach and battered at the dune grasses. Another storm was coming in fast. Sandra tasted it with each breath she took, felt its heaviness pressing at her.
    Dorrie started back toward the house. “It’s cold out here, and I have things to do.” She put her gloved hand on Sandra’s arm. “I have a plane to catch.”
    Sandra turned to the house, the falling-down house she was so eager to sell, and walked beside her mother in silence. Above the dunes, the big Victorian hunched like a shorebird in a storm. Overgrown sea roses and lilacs nearly obscured the bow-front window, and the gray, weathered siding matched the drabness of the thunderheads rolling down from the north to wallop the coast with another winter assault.
    The place had stood for more than a hundred years. Now it teetered on the verge of collapse. Mike Malloy—a regular guy who drove a pickup truck and fixed things — claimed he could restore it, and suddenly that promise meant everything to her.

Chapter
4
    T he storm struck when Mike was fifty feet off the ground, clinging to the catwalk on the Point Judith Light. The winter barrage chugged like a locomotive, hurling all its energy at the old brownstone tower. Wind and stinging sleet lashed at his shoulders and back as he struggled with a sheet of marine plywood. It caught the wind like a kite in a gale, pitching and thrusting him to the edge of the catwalk.
    Archie Glover had