The Walker in Shadows by Barbara Michaels Read Free Book Online

and resenting it even more bitterly than she had resented Friedrichs' sneer at her. Mark had had his choice of several excellent colleges. He had turned them all down when his father died, in order to stay with her. She pushed her chair back from the table.
    "I'm going over there and tell that-"
    "Mom!" Mark grabbed her and hugged her till her breath came out in a gasp. "Cool it," Mark said. "What a termagant you are! I can defend myself, you know. I'd look like a damned fool if my mommy went running over there to scold the mean man for hurting my little feelings." His voice changed. "Seriously, Mom, I appreciate it. But it wouldn't do any good. He'd just be rude to you. The man is neurotic. He's going to ruin that chick's life, but it's not your problem."
    "You're right," Pat said. She put her arms around Mark and hugged him back. "I'm sorry for the girl, but there's nothing we can do about it."
    All the same, she spent the rest of the evening thinking about what Friedrichs had said, and inventing horrible fates for him. Not until she was in bed and almost asleep did she isolate the odd feeling of uneasiness that had plagued her since dinner. "It's not your problem," Mark had said. Just a casual pronoun-only somehow she suspected its choice had not been casual at all.

II
    A few days later she decided she had let her imagination run away with her. Mark had apparently accepted the situation with perfect equanimity. He was eating, and drinking beer-and, his mother admitted to herself, playing his hi-fi too loud and perhaps driving just a little too fast-just as he had done before Kathy entered his life.
    Friedrichs' unjust criticisms continued to haunt Pat, though she knew she should dismiss them with the lofty contempt they deserved. Any man who would judge a boy by the college he attended had to be the worst kind of snob. The slap in the face-or rather, the plural slaps- irked her all the more because she had hoped so much for congenial neighbors. The two old houses at the end of Magnolia Drive were isolated not only in space but in character from the new houses on the block. It would have been so nice to have Halcyon House occupied by a pleasant woman who shared some of her interests, who would drop in for coffee on Saturday morning or perhaps invite her over for a drink occasionally. Early evening was the worst time. If Mark didn't have basketball practice he had other activities to occupy him, and Pat was often alone at that most melancholy hour of the day, when the body is tired and the mind yearns for communication.
    Of course, she reminded herself, all single women had to come to terms with that problem. In some ways it was easier for women who had never been married. Such a woman was accepted as complete in herself; she had never been one of a partnership. But she knew she was luckier than most, not only because of the nature of her relationship with Jerry, but because Mark had given up a year of his life to help her make the painful transition from two to one.
    As the lilacs opened lavender spears and the azaleas produced clumps of rosy bloom, Pat continued to brood. Like the flowers, she had been dormant for months. Now she was coming to life, jarred by the annoying presence next door. The process was painful, but perhaps it had a certain potential. Pat wondered wryly if the flowers really enjoyed the act of blooming. Maybe the azaleas ached too.
    The problem of what to do about Mark bothered her more and more. Was it too late for him to apply to another college next fall? He had said nothing about it; he seemed quite content with his life, with his friends and girl friends at the junior college, and his undemanding routine. Was he hiding his real feelings or-worse-was he getting into a comfortable rut which would be harder to break as time went on? Pat realized only too well that, beloved as he was, Mark was no substitute for Jerry as a companion. The generation gap was not fiction. She liked Haydn, Mark liked Jimmy