Violin by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

impatient, raging contempt, this intense personal dislike, this distaste! This aversion in her face that made me want to shrivel and give in and turn away and be silent and win no argument or fight or point of discussion.
    “Well, Faye might be
alive
right now,” Katrinka said, “if you hadn’t financed her running off and disappearing without a trace, you and your dead husband.”
    Rosalind told her plainly to shut up. Faye? Dead?
    This was too much. I smiled to myself. Everyone knew it was too much. Faye had disappeared, yes, but dead? And still, what did I feel, the big sister? A protective fear for Trink, that she’d indeed gone way too far, and they’d really insult her now, poor Katrinka. She’d cry and cry and never understand. They’d all despise her for this and she’d be so wounded.
    “Don’t—” I started to say.
    Dr. Guidry made motions to hurry me from the room. Grady took my arm.
    I was confused. Rosalind was at my side.
    Katrinka wailed on and on. She was going to pieces in there. Somebody had to help her. Maybe it would be Glenn. Glenn always helped people, even Katrinka.
    The implication of the words struck me again—“might be alive.”
    “Faye’s
not
dead, is she?” I asked. If I’d known for sure after these agonizing years of waiting for Faye, well, then I could have invited her down into the wet grave with us, and we could have been there, Faye and Lily andMother and Father and Karl, Faye included in my litany. But Faye couldn’t be dead. Not my precious Faye.
    It made a lie of all my eccentricity, my seemingly excessive wisdom and high-toned feeling. “Not Faye.”
    “There’s no word on Faye at all,” said Rosalind next to my ear. “Faye’s probably drinking tequila in a truck stop in Mexico.” She kissed me once more. I felt her heavy tender arm.
    We stood in the front door, Grady and I—the mad widow and the kindly elderly family lawyer.
    I love the front door of my house. It’s a big double door, right in the middle of the house, and you go out on the wide front porch and you can walk to the left or the right, and the porch wraps all the way around the sides of the house. It’s so pretty. Not a day of my life has ever passed that I have not thought of this house and thought of it as pretty.
    Years ago, Faye and I used to dance on the porch of this house. Eight years younger than me, she was small enough to be in my arms, like a monkey, and we would sing, “Casey, he waltzed with the girl he adored and the band played on—”
    And look at the azaleas in the patches by the steps, blood red, and so thick! Of course it was spring. Everywhere they bloomed, these pampered plants—a real Garden District house with its snow-white columns.
    And look, Miss Hardy didn’t have on white shoes at all. They were gray.
    Back inside the house, Rosalind roared at Katrinka. “Don’t talk about Faye, not now! Don’t talk about Faye.”
    And Katrinka’s words came in one of those long dramatic drawn-out growls …
    Someone had lifted my foot. It was Miss Hardy,putting a slipper on my foot. The gate stood open below. Grady had my arm.
    Dr. Guidry stood beside an open ambulance.
    Grady spoke again, telling me if I would go to Mercy Hospital, I could walk out just as soon as I wanted to. Just let them get some fluids and nourishment into me.
    Dr. Guidry came to take my hand. “You’re dehydrated, Triana, you haven’t eaten. Nobody’s talking about committing you anywhere. I want you to go into the hospital, that’s all. I want you to rest. And I promise you, no one will do anything or test for anything.”
    I sighed. Everything was getting brighter.
    “Angel of God,” I whispered, “my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here …”
    Suddenly I saw them clearly around me.
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m so so sorry … I am so very sorry for all this, I … I’m sorry.” I cried. “You can test. Yes, test. Do what has to be done. I’m