Read A Big Storm Knocked It Over for Free Online

condition. It covered him like fog, and he gritted his teeth until it went away. Jane Louise could pet him and stroke him. He kissed her abstractly in a way that told her that she was no help. He had gone through these moments since he was a child, when they had been much, much worse.
    Jane Louise had first seen him fall silent after a conversation on the telephone with his father, who had wanted him to do something or other for Martine’s brother. She had tried to find out what had transpired. It was made clear to her that she was not going to find out. Teddy’s desolation had on it a keen edge of anger, flashy as a newly sharpened blade. She had felt her heart shrink in fear—fear of the person she loved best in the world.
    Now as they walked home in the dark she knew she would never know what he was thinking. They had met too late in life to be each other’s perfect other, but she felt toward him a kind of teen passion as well as a kind of grown-up gratitude. It didn’t matter if she would never quite know what was on his mind: He was hers.
    She felt she had stepped into his life, something new and alien, like a modern chair brought into a room full of family furniture. The fact that she loved him, that he had chosen her, did not bridge this river of differences. Why had he not married some nicegirl from nearby? Or an upright girl like Beth Peering who had been brought up in a small New England town, with a father who was a professor of agriculture and a mother who raised children and made pickles? Teddy had married a Jewess, a nomad, a woman with a checkered romantic history. She gave a shiver.
    â€œAre you all right?” Teddy said.
    â€œI always think you should have married someone from here, ” Jane Louise said.
    â€œI didn’t want to marry someone from here,” Teddy said. “I wanted to marry you. ”
    â€œI’m freezing,” Jane Louise said as they opened the door. Teddy stoked up the wood stove.
    â€œI meant my heart was freezing,” Jane Louise said. Teddy gave her a look of puzzlement and pain, a look that said: What do women want? He took her in his arms.
    â€œDo you think I married you for some funny reason?” he said.
    â€œI think you married me for complicated reasons.”
    â€œEveryone marries someone else for complicated reasons,” Teddy said.
    â€œNot Beth and Peter,” Jane Louise said into his shirtfront.
    â€œBeth and Peter just look uncomplicated,” Teddy said. “They don’t think in complicated terms.”
    â€œThey have perfect lives.”
    â€œBirdie has a learning disorder,” Teddy said. “She isn’t reading. They’re very worried about her.”
    Teddy was Birdie’s godfather. He singled her out and for years had taken her to the county fair while the other two girls went with their parents. He was sensitive to her being the underdog and the middle child. Her sisters were traditional child beauties, with blond hair and blue eyes, whereas Birdie was brown eyed and brown haired, serious and undervalued: a problem.
    Jane Louise loved Birdie, too. She took her off alone whenevershe could. Birdie gave her hope, connection. When she took Birdie to the beach, the feel of that skinny hand in hers made her heart expand.
    One afternoon last summer, Edie and Jane Louise had taught Birdie how to make sugar roses—they were decorating a cake for Mokie’s birthday.
    â€œDid I do it right?” Birdie had asked Jane Louise. She had produced a slightly lopsided but very nice-looking rose.
    Jane Louise had said: “It’s perfect. Oh, Birdie, someday I would like to have a little girl just like you.”
    â€œLike me?” said Birdie in total disbelief.
    â€œJust exactly like you,” Jane Louise said.
    When she and Teddy took Birdie to the county fair, the summer before they got married, Birdie took both their hands and skipped between them. It was clear that Teddy was