The Replacement Wife by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page A

something? You just said the guy doesn’t know she exists.”
    “All the more reason. The only thing standing in the way is shyness.”
    “His or hers?”
    “Both, if my guess is correct.”
    “Our daughter,” he said, “is anything but shy.” Kyra was very vocal in expressing her opinions.
    “Not at home, no, but in school? With boys? Don’t you remember what it was like at that age?”
    “Sure, and I’d have died of embarrassment if my parents had invited over some girl I liked.”
    “I didn’t say we should invite him.”
    “Doesn’t it amount to the same thing?”
    “I was only going to suggest it.”
    “You want my advice? Stay out of it.”
    Camille rolled onto her side so they were face-to-face. “So we should just let her flounder?”
    “She’s not floundering. As far as I can tell, she’s doing just fine.” He added on a lighter note, “Besides, I have it on good authority that meddling in a teenager’s love life can bite you in the ass.”
    “Whose authority would that be?”
    “Yours. Those were your exact words when I suggested she ask Seth Conway to the Sadie Hawkins dance.”
    “This is different,” she said. “Seth’s a junior. Jan is her age, at least.”
    He smiled. “Spoken like a true matchmaker.”
    “Yes, and a damned good one at that.” She was quiet for a minute, studying his face. When she spoke again, her voice was low and tremulous. “Edward, I need to ask something of you.”
    “Of course. Anything,” he replied without hesitation, but for some reason he felt a chill tiptoe up his spine.
    “Promise me you’ll marry again after I’m gone.”
    It was the last thing he wished to think about now or ever. He’d never looked at another woman, not even during the months Camille had been so ill, with their sex life on hold. He couldn’t imagine lying next to another woman like this. Holding her in his arms. Making love to her.
    “We are not having this conversation.” He spoke in a tone that invited no dissent. “You’re my wife. The only one I want. And you’re not going anywhere. That’s all there is to say on the subject.”
    “But if—”
    He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t. This is hard enough as it is.”
    Camille’s gaze remained fixed on him. Her eyes were a shade of blue so vivid it seemed color-enhanced, like that of the sky in the glossy brochures still tucked in his coat pocket. He recalled thinking, when they had first met, I could spend the rest of my life gazing into those eyes. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might outlive her; it was as unthinkable then as it was now.
    THEY MET ON a rainy night in September of 1989. George Bush senior was in office and the Gulf War was heating up in the Middle East. That, and reports of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, had campus activists in a foment, waving placards and chanting protests, though Edward was too intent on his studies to pay much attention, steeped in subjects whose names he’d have had difficulty pronouncing when he was a boy merely dreaming of becoming a doctor: neurobiology, microbial pathogenesis, general virology, molecular diagnostics. Sometimes he’d nod off in the middle of a late-night cram session and wake hours later to find his head resting on an open book, its pages pressing a ridge into his cheek. One of his roommates, Darryl Hornquist, after finding him in that pitiful state once too often, urged him to get out more, find some other interests before he caved under the pressure. “I’ve already lost one roommate to the psych ward,” Darryl had said. He was referring to Lewis Karlinsky, who’d had to drop out the previous semester after he became obsessed with light switches and doorknobs and keeping all his pens and colored markers precisely lined up. Edward, after giving it some thought, decided Darryl was right, so he began volunteering at a crisis center in the East Village, where his job was to man the suicide hotline Tuesday and Thursday nights between