Read The Village by the Sea for Free Online

found she couldn’t concentrate. At last she gave up trying and went down the hall to the bathroom.
    Aunt Bea must have taken a bath before she’d changed her clothes. There was still steam on the medicine chest mirror. Hanging from a hook on the door were four or five bedraggled cotton bathrobes. Two damp towels lay on the floor. Dozens of small jars of creams stood on the windowsill, their lids scattered amidst them. There were balls of dust everywhere. Peering at a large one beneath the sink, she saw a flash of white at its center. She knelt and plucked it out. It was a plastic deer not longer than an inch. A string was tied through a loop between its tiny antlers. Emma looked at it curiously, then put it in her pocket. She found a yellow towel she guessed was hers bunched up in a corner near the tub.
    The hall was utterly silent. She pretended for a moment that Aunt Bea and Uncle Crispin had gone away. She would be able to manage by herself—though maybe it would be spooky at night. Her mother had given her ten dollars in case she needed something. There was probably a store not far away where she could buy a few groceries. She began to love the idea, and the pleasure of it set her running down the hall to the narrow window. But the thump of her own feet on the floor broke into her dream. Uncle Crispin, she knew, would not leave her alone. She wasn’t so sure about Aunt Bea.
    Looking out over the tops of the pine trees, she spotted the roof of a house, the place where the girl and her grandmother spent the summer, a two- or three-minute walk through the little wood, she guessed. A phone rang from below. A moment or two later, Uncle Crispin called up from the living room, “Emma, it’s for you.”
    The phone sat on the end of the long table next to a closed violin case. Uncle Crispin, wearing a blue canvas apron, held out the receiver to Emma. She took it eagerly, noticing at the same time how gently his other hand rested on the case. For an instant, it seemed to her he was petting it as if it were a beloved creature. “Your mother,” he whispered.
    â€œOh, Mom!” Emma breathed.
    â€œDaddy is settled in,” her mother told her. “He has a lovely nurse named Lucy Biggs and his window looks out on the East River.”
    Emma’s eyes filled with tears. She could not speak.
    â€œEmma?” Her mother’s voice was alarmed. “Uncle Crispin says you’ve settled in, too—that you had a walk on the beach with him.…”
    â€œI’m okay,” Emma managed to say. She could see Aunt Bea’s back, her moving elbows.
    â€œYou don’t sound okay,” her mother said.
    Uncle Crispin had gone back to the dining room. Emma pressed the phone against her mouth. “Is it true what Aunt Bea said?” she said, almost whispering. “That when you’re young, heart trouble is more serious?”
    â€œThe same old Bea,” her mother said grimly. “Listen, Emma. Heart trouble is always serious. But everything is looking hopeful for your father. I want you to be hopeful, too.” She was speaking slowly, trying to be patient. Emma longed for the weight of her mother’s arm around her shoulders, the way she would run one finger across her forehead and around her face as though she were tracing it.
    â€œI’ll be hopeful,” Emma said, wondering how you could feel hope when fear, like a thick fog, hid everything but itself. “Are you going to call me tomorrow?” she asked.
    â€œOf course I am,” her mother said. “I’m going to call you all the time.” Emma pressed the receiver closer to her ear. “But Uncle Crispin—he is nice, isn’t he?” her mother said. “A patient, kind person.”
    â€œYes … he’s cooking our supper right now,” Emma answered.
    â€œI have to go back to Daddy, Emma.”
    Emma thought she could actually hear the miles between them as