The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult Read Free Book Online Page B

if the walls in the kitchen are yellow or white; if there is still a loaf of bread—probably store-bought, I think with mild judgment—sitting on the counter after someone has made French toast for breakfast.
    When the door opens, I swear out loud and slink lower in my seat, even though there is no reason to believe that Shannon sees me. She comes out of the house still zipping her purse, hitting the remote control so that her car doors unlock. “Come on,” she calls. “We’re going to be late for the appointment.”
    A moment later Grace stumbles out, coughing violently.
    “Cover your mouth,” her mother says.
    I realize I am holding my breath. Grace looks like Shannon, in miniature—same golden hair, same delicate features, even the same bounce to their walk. “Do I have to miss camp?” Grace asks miserably.
    “You do if you have bronchitis,” Shannon says, and then they both get into the car and peel out of the driveway.
    Adam hadn’t told me his daughter was sick.
    Then again, why would he? I don’t hold claim to that part of his life.
    As I pull away, I realize that I’m not going to book those airline tickets to Kansas City. I never will.
    Instead of driving home, though, I find myself looking up Josef’s address on my iPhone. He lives at the end of a small cul-de-sac, and I am parked at the curb trying to concoct a reason that I might be dropping by when he knocks on the window of my car. “So it is you,” Josef says.
    He is holding the end of Eva’s leash. She dances around his feet in circles. “What brings you to my neighborhood?” he asks.
    I consider telling him that it is a coincidence, that I took a wrong turn. Or that I have a friend who lives nearby. But instead, I wind up speaking the truth. “You,” I say.
    A smile breaks across his face. “Then you must stay for tea,” he insists.
    His home is not decorated the way I would have expected. There are chintz couches with lace doilies on the backs, photographs on top of a dusty mantel, a collection of Hummel figurines on a shelf. The invisible fingerprints of a woman are everywhere. “You’re married,” I murmur.
    “I was,” Josef says. “To Marta. For fifty-one very good years and one not-so-good.”
    This must have been the reason he started coming to grief group, I realize. “I’m sorry.”
    “I am, too,” he says heavily. He takes the tea bag from his mug and carefully wraps a noose around it on the bowl of the spoon. “Every Wednesday night she would remind me to take the garbage can to the curb. In fifty years, I never once forgot, but she never gave me the benefit of the doubt. Drove me crazy. Now, I would give anything to hear her remind me again.”
    “I almost flunked out of college,” I reply. “My mother actually moved into my dorm room and dragged me out of bed and made me study with her. I felt like the biggest loser on earth. And now I realize how lucky I was.” I reach down and stroke Eva’s silky head. “Josef?” I ask. “Do you ever feel like you’re losing her? Like you can’t hear the exact pitch of her voice in your head anymore, or you can’t remember what her perfume smelled like?”
    He shakes his head. “I have the opposite problem,” he says. “I can’t forget him.”
    “Him?”
    “Her,” Josef corrects. “All this time, and I still mix up the German words with the English.”
    My gaze lands on a chess set on a sideboard behind Josef. The pieces are all carefully carved: pawns shaped like tiny unicorns, rooks fashioned into centaurs, a pair of Pegasus knights. The queen’s mermaid tail curls around its base; the head of the vampire king is tossed back, fangs bared. “This is incredible,” I breathe, walking closer for a better look. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    Josef chuckles. “That is because there is only one. It is a family heirloom.”
    I stare with even more admiration at the chessboard, with its seamless inlay of cherry and maple squares; at the tiny jeweled