Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve Read Free Book Online Page B

have my friends to the house, and there would be food that she had made in the refrigerator or on the counter to tempt us, or she would ask my friends to dinner or to spend the night. She was vivacious when my friends came to the house, as if she were trying to make it seem as though more people lived there than actually did, as if we were, in fact, just like all the other families on the street. I had girlfriends, later boyfriends, and I remember a kind of frenzied race forward through my teens, my energies channeled into my schoolwork and into trying to be more popular than I was constitutionally meant to be. But my fantasies, nebulous though they were, were focused on a distant point, after high school, when I would live away from home. I loved my mother, and I did not like to think of her alone after I had left, but I understood that neither she nor I would be happy unless I did what I was supposed to do, unless I seized for myself those things that she had been denied.
    In the daytime, when my mother was off to Chicago to her job, if I was not in school I would walk the tracks with my friends or by myself. We would walk to other towns (more easily reached by railbed than by road), hopping off the tracks when we heard an oncoming train. We felt ourselves "adventurous." The tracks were peaceful and gave a sense of the lay of the land, but the true attraction of this pastime was the illusion of freedom. There would be an endless stretch of rails and ties with no visible impediment and a sense that one could walk forward forever. Even now, when I hear the rhythmic clacking of a passing train, I think of my mother and of the promise of a journey and of that distant desirable point where the rails seem to converge.

Muriel Noyes
    What's this story all about, anyway?
    I won't be part of no article that is critical of Mary Amesbury, so you can put that thing away right now if this is some kind of hatchet job. Mary Amesbury is innocent. Trust me, I know. How do I know? Because I've been there before. And any woman who has been there knows the truth about this kind of thing.
    I had a husband who beat me. The goddamn son of a bitch ruined my life. Goddamn ruined my life. Took away the best years of my life. You can't ever get them back. You know what I'm sayin'? I had my babies, I couldn't even love them. I mean, I loved them, but I couldn't ever enjoy anything, because I had to be so afraid all the time, scared to death every time he walked in the door, scared for them, scared for me. He hit my son in the high chair once, the baby was only seven months old. Jesus Christ, I ask you. Seven months old. I hadda take the baby to the doctor. I hadda lie. I hadda lie every goddamn day of my life because I was so ashamed and scared.
    I'll tell you something. I'm not afraid of anyone or anything now. Ever.
    So I know all about this. There isn't anything about this I don't know.
    Though I will say I didn't realize about Mary Amesbury until the next morning. You catch me while I'm readin' my magazines, forget it. Anyway, she came in, and when I looked at her, I was really lookin' at the baby, so I didn't see it.
    But next morning she came into the office, and she had the scarf around her and the dark glasses, and I knew, right then, and she saw I knew, and she looked at me, and I swear to God, I thought she was goin' to pass out. Then she says to me, when she recovers, do I know of a place where she can stay awhile, a cottage like. I mulled it over in my mind and said how Julia Strout might have something. Julia rents cottages in the summer.
    I guess it was 'cause I had a feeling of what she'd been through, and with the baby and all, that made me call Julia myself. Up here, we usually don't bother much with strangers, but this was different, you understand?
    I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was tryin' to keep it hidden, but you could see it. You wouldn't of believed it if you'd seen it. It's a nightmare, a goddamn nightmare. Havin' to