The Widow's Season by Laura Brodie Read Free Book Online Page B

charity auctions. But Judith had oohed and ahhed so much when she saw the paintings in their house, praising David’s use of light, and insisting “I had no idea ,” that Sarah had agreed, an exhibit would be a nice tribute.
    She put the landscape back into the bin and stepped aside. “Find a few you’d like for yourself. And you should look through these photographs. They’re all from your family.” She lifted some albums from the bookshelves and placed them on the table beside the couch. “Would you like a drink? I’m going upstairs.” Nate shook his head and she retreated in search of Chardonnay.
    An hour later Nate had chosen a dozen pictures and two paintings. One was an oil landscape with a barn and fence, beautifully done, though Sarah never would have guessed that the subject would appeal to him. The other was a watercolor of Helen, David and Nate’s mother, bent over a garden of daylilies.
    “Yes, that one is nice.” She should have known that he would choose it. Helen was the great love of Nate’s life; beside her, all girlfriends shriveled to insignificance. She used to come to Virginia to flee the winters of her native Vermont, made so much colder after her husband’s heart attack. Many evenings while David was off at medical emergencies, Sarah and Helen had spent hours by the fire, comparing book-club lists, lamenting the state of undergraduate grammar, and sharing stories about the McConnell brothers.
    Nate never knew how much his mother admired him, how she had marveled at his beauty as he grew from toddler to teenager, wondering how her body could have produced such symmetry. Sometimes when he exited a room Helen would raise her eyebrows at Sarah and say: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Keats’s line had a wonderfully ironic ring on those days when Nate was feeling sullen; his mother’s presence had a way of reducing him to sulky petulance.
    If Helen had lived, Sarah now thought, Nate could have been the only son. He could have monopolized his mother’s attention, become her raison d’être. Or perhaps a dead brother would have been harder to compete with than a living one? Regardless, Helen had succumbed to breast cancer three years ago, leaving her sons without that point in the family triangle to hold them together. In the last year, the two brothers had scarcely spoken.
    Sarah knew that it was a betrayal, to let Nate acquire this symbol of love between David and his mother. David had completed Helen’s portrait as a Mother’s Day gift, trumping Nate’s fresh flowers with these painted lilies. But Nate would treasure it; all images of Helen were sacred.
    “Keep them for the exhibit.” Nate put both of the paintings back into the bin. “Just mark them for me.”
     
     
     
    By late afternoon Sarah was helping Nate pack boxes of clothes, books, and videotapes into his trunk. His visit had been more pleasant than she expected. He had taught her how to start the Weedwacker, and had trimmed the entire yard. He had checked the fluids in her car, and had shown her where to pour the oil.
    “Are you going to be all right?” he asked as he stood beside his car.
    “Of course.” She gave him an awkward hug.
    And then he did a strange thing. He lifted his right hand and combed it through her hair, pulling her bangs back from her eyes and stopping behind her ear, where he cupped his palm and held her skull as if it were a brandy snifter. He tilted her head toward him ever so slightly and leaned forward, kissing her gently on her left cheek.
    Before she had time to think, he was in his car and down the street, leaving her blushing on the curb. She hadn’t been kissed so tenderly in years, and the effect was wrenching. Her mind was caught between annoyance and puzzlement, wondering what sort of game he was playing. But her skin, still tingling with the soft pressure of his lips, whispered “More, more, more.”

• 6 •
    What woke her at 3:13 that night? There was no thunder, no