The Divide by Nicholas Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

fragile shield from the shock. Kendrick delicately asked if he should let Sarah know, but Ben said he would do it himself and that, in any case, she was in Italy. From his weekly phone call to Josh two days ago, he knew she wasn’t due home until Monday.
    Kendrick said once more how sorry he was and that he would call again in the morning. They could decide then what to do about funeral arrangements and what to tell the media. There would, of course, have to be some sort of statement.
    “Yes,” Ben said. “Of course.”
    Ben thanked him and hung up and sat there staring at the TV. The credits were rolling. He found the remote and killed the picture. And only then did he start to weep.
    An hour later, lying with his head still cradled on Eve’s breast, her nightgown patched with his tears, they began to discuss what was to be done. Ben wondered if it might be best not to tell Sarah until she got back. Spare her all those long hours on the plane with no one to comfort her, cloistered alone with her grief. Maybe he should fly to New York and meet her off the plane and tell her then. But Eve, clearer-headed than he and, as a mother, wiser in such matters, said he couldn’t leave it that long. Sarah had a right to be told straightaway and would hold against him any failure to do so.
    In Venice, they calculated, it was now six o’clock in the morning. Too early to call. Let her sleep, Ben thought. Give her two more hours without the pain. Without this new pain. He would phone at midnight. They could then decide between the two of them how to break the news to Josh and the grandparents and whoever else needed to know.
    While they waited, he told her what Kendrick had said about releasing the news to the media. A couple of years ago, Abbie Cooper, little rich girl turned ecoterrorist, wanted all across America for murder, had been big news. There had been whole TV shows devoted to her, with dramatized reconstructions of what she was alleged to have done. For months Ben had to field half a dozen calls a week from reporters, mostly trying to follow up on some new angle. But as time went by and there was still no arrest, they seemed to lose interest and the circus had moved on. Maybe they wouldn’t make too much of a meal out of her being found dead. Or maybe they would.
    At midnight, when he called Venice, he was told that Signora Cooper had already left the hotel. And when he called again two hours later she still hadn’t returned. They waited, fading in and out of sleep, holding each other while the candles burned low and guttered and one by one died. Once, while Eve slept on beside him, facing away from him, a curve of hip warm against his belly, he woke and wept again while a slice of moon traversed the window.
    He was jolted from his sleep just before seven. Eve was standing beside the bed, handing him his ringing cell phone.
    “It’s Sarah,” she said.
    He saw the name on the little screen and so disoriented was he by sleep that for a moment he wondered why she might be calling. Then the leaden reality reassembled. Their daughter was dead.
    Eve was already dressed. Sunlight flecked with dust was slanting in through the window behind her. He sat up and took the phone and she kissed his forehead and walked out. She had left a mug of coffee on the bedside table. He could hear Pablo calling from the kitchen. He pressed the green button on the phone and said hello.
    “Benjamin?”
    Her voice sounded tight and throaty, barely recognizable. She was the only one in the world who ever called him Benjamin.
    “Sweetheart—”
    She had reprimanded him more than once for calling her that— Whatever I am to you now, Benjamin, I’m certainly not your sweetheart —but it was hard to break a habit of so many years. This time she cut in on him before the word was fully uttered.
    “What is it?” she said. “Is it Abbie? Have they found her?”
    It startled him that she should know. But it was only to discuss their children that