Sick of Shadows by Sharyn McCrumb Read Free Book Online Page B

asleep.”
    Captain Grandfather looked up from his plate of eggs and bacon. “That boy is a perfect candidate for impressment,” he grunted.
    “Well, I have an interesting morning ahead,” Elizabeth announced. “Alban is giving me a tour of his house.”
    Charles yawned and stretched. “It’s too pretty to stay cooped up inside,” he remarked. “I’m going down to the orchard to get a little ultraviolet on my epidermis. I will see you later.”
    He picked up a thick book on quantum physics that had been lying next to his plate, and ambled off in the direction of the back door. Elizabeth sighed and shook her head.
    “What does he do?” she asked.
    “Who, Charles?”
    “Yes. If he’s so interested in physics, shouldn’t he be in grad school somewhere?”
    “Oh, it’ll come to that, I expect. Right now, Charles and his friends are fed up with academia. They claim it’s too restrictive. You can’t do research without a lot of rigamarole, and they don’t want to be bothered with policy. Think they can do it on their own. Like Isaac Newton, Charles always says. Course, apples are cheaper than cyclotrons, as Geoffrey is fond of pointing out.”
    “Apples? Oh! The law of gravity!”
    “Right. They’ve started sending off grant applications trying to get funding to do their own work without having to hook up with some university or existing company. I don’t hold out much hope, though. Nobody’s going to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to that bunch. But you can’t tell Charles that. I give them six months.”
    Elizabeth smiled, thinking how odd it was to find a Chandler with money problems.
    Captain Grandfather began to chuckle. “I know what you’re thinking, young lady. You think they’ve all got their sea cocks open, don’t you?”
    “If that means they’re strange, you’re absolutely right.”
    “What they are is independent,” he said, pouring himself a cup of tea from the Victorian silver teapot.“Independent and smart. So they find their interests in life and stick to them. They can afford to.”
    “What about Charles?”
    “Well, his income doesn’t run to nuclear reactors, but he won’t miss a meal. As I was saying, with the Chandler money, we don’t have to impress prospective employers or try to win friends with conformity. We do as we damn well please. You ought to try it sometime—not caring what anybody thinks. You’d find out who you are.”
    “I wouldn’t be another Charles, that’s for sure.”
    “I don’t know. Charles is very like your mother.”
    Elizabeth stared. “My mother? Are you kidding? Suburbia’s macramé lady—like Charles?”
    Captain Grandfather nodded. “Exactly. Margaret was the rebel of my three girls. I used to get letters from your grandmother in those days: ‘What are we going to do with Margaret?’ Your mother went off to Columbia with that friend of hers—Rhonda or Doris or some such name. They went to a dance at Fort Jackson, and Margaret met Lieutenant MacPherson. You know the rest.”
    “Well, don’t make it sound like we live in the back of a station wagon!” laughed Elizabeth. “There were two cars in the driveway when I left home, and Dad’s business is doing pretty well.”
    “I know,” said Captain Grandfather. “And your parents are very happy, which is all that matters. I was only trying to explain to you that your cousins are people who can do just as they please. Don’t set such a store by what you call normality. Sometimes I think the strain of trying to keep up that pose could make a person crazy. Better let them be themselves, so the pressure doesn’t build up.”
    “Have it your way,” sighed Elizabeth, getting up from the table. “At least it’s never dull.”
    The mellow tone of Amanda’s “cathedral-chimes” doorbell echoed down the hall.
    “I expect that’s Alban now,” said Captain Grandfather. “Weren’t you supposed to meet him at ten?”
    “I’m just going.”
    “Don’t answer it,