Summer House by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online

made her blush. She stood there, paralyzed in the hall, eavesdropping on her husband and flushing with a painful heat.
    “I don’t think she’s awake yet. I don’t smell coffee. But she’ll be up any minute so I really should get off the phone. Oh, Sweet Cakes, you know I’ll phone you.” His voice grew louder, as if he were moving closer to the door, to the hall, where Helen stood paralyzed.
    Then the primitive fight-or-flight survival instinct shut down her thoughts and shocked her into action. Heart pounding, she raced down the stairs and into the den, where she paced around the room, wringing her hands together.
    My God. Worth was having an affair.
    She had known something was wrong. She’d sensed it, the presence of a parasitic vine twining around her life, draining her marriage of its nutrients.
    Growing green and supple, while she grew gray and brittle.
    But perhaps she was wrong! Perhaps—but no. She had heard her husband say it. All he wanted was to take Sweet Cakes to bed.
    All right, then, perhaps it wasn’t serious. But what if it was? Worth was a handsome man with enormous charm and charisma. He was a powerful man with many friends. She was sure he hadn’t had affairs before now. For one thing, he was always so busy, either at the bank or with his family. Of course she was not naïve; she knew a man could always find time to have an affair, but Worth was a Wheelwright, and Wheelwrights were all about family.
    Worth’s father would not have tolerated any kind of insult to the family. But Herb had died five years ago. He was not here to judge. Nona judged, and harshly, but she didn’t have the kinds of access Herb had had to the world of men. She did not have the enormous range of contacts.
    Was this why Worth was having an affair? Because his father had died and his mother was aging? Nona’s hearing and strength were failing. Worth was always her favorite, and Nona’s slowly flagging energy had to be very hard for him to see.
    And his children were refusing to go through the golden doors Worth had opened for them, into the business of the family bank. Perhaps he considered himself a failure because of this, and Worth did not like to fail.
    Oh, come on, Helen , she told herself. It doesn’t take a convolutedFreudian reason for a man to have an affair. It only takes Sweet Cakes and chemistry. What should she do?
    What could she do?
    Should she confront him? No. Not now. Not today. It was Nona’s birthday. Her children were already bringing enough disorder into the clockwork perfection of the Wheelwright family. She would not allow herself to distract anyone from this weekend celebration of their revered and beloved Nona.
    But she was almost shivering with a frantic energy that outdid any caffeine hit she’d ever had. Was she hysterical? Probably. She had reason to be!
    She had to think about something else, or she’d simply explode. Hurrying to her desk, she forced herself to focus. Book sale , her calendar said. Book sale. She needed to sort books for the island library sale.
    One wall of the den had shelves built in from floor to ceiling, and the shelves were full. In some places, books had been placed in front of or on top of the original rows. Pacing back and forth, she scanned the titles, and then she began to empty the shelves. The Scarlet Letter! They hadn’t read that in years. And all those Hemingways were her college texts. And Edgar Allan Poe was so weird and depressing. These editions, handsomely bound, would bring a pretty penny.
    Her stack grew. She would box these up and take them down to the island when they moved down for the summer.
    And the children’s books! She could pack those too, all of them! Who knew when she would ever have grandchildren? She longed for grandchildren, but would she ever have any? Oliver and Owen wouldn’t have children. Teddy was practically a child himself. And she couldn’t press the responsibility on Charlotte. Charlotte already had enough on her