The Last Secret by Mary Mcgarry Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

him Nora's beaded purse.
    “Thank you,” she says, before turning to go. “You're both so good at this.”
    Bibbi and Hank smile wanly. Ken holds her close through the chandeliered sparkle of the lobby, then out to the parking lot where a fine snow sifts over the cars. Inside, he sits for a moment staring into the fan of darkness the wipers make on the white windshield.
    “I'm so sorry, Nora.” He rubs his face. “I can't stand to see you hurt. You know that. I don't know why … I don't know what happened … I don't know why I told you,” he moans, his voice thick with anguish.
    “You don't know why you told me!” She springs, slapping him, punching his head. “That's all you're sorry for, isn't it? That's all you care about, damn it! Isn't it? Admit it! Admit it! Admit it!” she cries, pummeling his hunched back as he sobs with his hands over his head. “Oh my God!” she gasps, shrinking back, as the two visions merge, him, that man sagging over the wheel. “Oh my God … oh my God,” she whispers, sinking against the door. “Take me home. Just take me home.”

n the murky twilight Lisa almost looks pretty. Or is it the intimacy of these last few days together? Hardest to overlook at first was the wide neck and thin carroty hair exposing patches of pink scalp, but now it's her mouth he's most aware of, ropy and wet with constant babble. Her sisters are attractive enough. She showed him their pictures the first night of their trip. They favor their mother while she's cursed with her father's broad back and short legs, poor thing, Eddie thinks with more disgust than pity. Her exuberance reminds him of a neglected dog. Roused by his slightest attention, she's all over him. Worse, when she drinks. Her eyes bulge and spittle sprays the air with her startlingly deep laughter.
    She loved Vegas. It was her third trip there, but this one was the most fun, she said. The other times all she and her mother did was play the slots and blackjack, which Eddie refused to do. “Come on, please!” she teased, trying to tug him back into the casino. His eyes burned with rage. It took every ounce of self-control not to slap her. She'd just lost $120. A hundred and twenty when he still had such a long way to go.
    “No!” he growled, leaning close. “You'll just blow the rest of it.”
    “So what? I don't care. Come on, I want to. Please,” she begged, pursing her red lips in a garish pout and pulling on him.
    “Get your fucking hand off me.”
    Her head snapped back, eyes so suddenly thick with tears, that for a second he thought he'd hit her. She turned, pushing through a crowdof old ladies wearing name tags and red straw hats, getting off the elevator.
    “Lisa! Wait! I'm sorry.”
    To make it up to her, they took in a late show, Céline Dion. “I love you, Céline,” Lisa shrieked during the applause, whooping and stamping her feet at their table in the back row. They were both drunk, her a lot, him just enough to have made penitential love to her in their cheap motel room with its cigarette-stenchy light-and-air-stifling maroon drapes.
    “She's my favorite singer. It's like she becomes transported. Did you notice that, how it's almost, like, religious,” she shouts over the air-conditioning and Céline's new CD that she'd bought for him. Paid cash, as she has for everything so far. No bills when she gets home, he reminds her whenever she takes out a credit card. To pass like vapor, leaving no trail, steers every decision, each unlikely route on the map. Out of her sight, he shreds every receipt. She admires his caution about money and is touched by his shame at not having any of his own right now. His concern for her well-being has eased her early fears. She can tell him anything, she confided last night.
    She is talking, still talking. Louder, now, to be heard over the music. Please, he thinks, soon, needing, aching to close his eyes, but can't. Not yet.
    “You know what I mean, like the way she's actually