Read After the Fire for Free Online Page A

something.”
    “Not tired. Worried,” Francine said gently.
    “I'm not at all worried. Why should I be?”
    She was not going to open any space for the discussion that her mother probably wanted.
    “I don't know why you should or should not be worried, Hyacinth. That's for you to tell me if you want to. If you think I can help.”
    “Only if you have changed your opinion about him.”
    Part of her wanted to cry out: “I'm afraid. I wish somebody—you or somebody—would tell me what to do. I don't know whether I should ask him first, or wait for him to ask me first. In there at the table listening just now, he even seemed strange to me. I don't know—”
    “My opinion is still that Gerald is very charming andintelligent. He speaks well. He tries to please, and as I've said from the beginning—”
    Jim shouted from the hall, “Francine, come in here and invite Gerald to stay overnight. He thinks it'll be too much trouble. But the road is a sheet of ice. You'd have to be crazy to get into a car in weather like this if you didn't have to.”
    “Of course. It's no trouble at all to have you stay. We have plenty of room.”
    Gerald hesitated. “I've got work at home, paperwork due Monday.”
    “You can leave here by noon tomorrow,” Jim insisted. “The roads will have started to melt by then. And you'll still have plenty of time to do your work.”
    “You're very kind, but really, I've driven on ice before—”
    Hyacinth stood there, alone under the light in the center of the hall, waiting. Why are you begging him to stay? He doesn't want to. Can't you see that?
    But Dad had decided. “Go on up, Hy, and show him Paul's room.”
    They went upstairs. “You didn't want to stay,” Hyacinth said, “and you shouldn't do it if you don't want to.”
    “You're angry at me,” Gerald said in some surprise.
    “Yes. Or no, not angry, but hurt. You had all these plans that you were just describing, and you've never said a word about anything to me.”
    “I was going to do it today, but I lost my nerve. I didn't want to spoil the day.”
    “Spoil the day? What do you mean?”
    “Sit down, and let me explain.”
    She sat down on the bed and stared at his moving lips. He was about to say something that would shatter her. She knew it. And she sat up tall, waiting.
    “I wanted to tell you this when we were alone. I already have a residency—two of them, as a matter of fact, and both first rate. But unfortunately, they're both in Texas.”
    “And why is that unfortunate?”
    “Well, it—it's not exactly a cheap or easy commute to Texas, is it?”
    His words, which usually flowed easily, came awkwardly. His smile was wan.
    “Go on,” she said.
    Opening his arms wide and breaking into a lament, he cried to her, “I've known about this for the last two weeks, and Hy, I haven't dared to ask. Will you wait for me? I've been so afraid of your answer. But will you?”
    Then the facts struck her. “You mean we can't see each other for the next three years? What are you saying? Why?”
    Softly, he put his arms around her rigid shoulders and replied, “One word explains it.
Money
.”
    “But you said they pay you.”
    “You're forgetting that I also have debts.”
    “You can't mean this,” she whispered.
    “Darling, I do. I have to.”
    “You always tell me that a week away is too long.”
    “And so it is.”
    “Yes,” she whispered, “there must have been something in the air tonight, some poisonous premonition.When we were at the table, I looked at you once and felt such pain! Do you understand? And I was angry, angry at the world. I didn't know why. It was as if somebody had died or gone away forever.”
    “Not forever,” he protested.
    “None of this makes sense. Other couples manage. Do you think I'm going to stop working, for heaven's sake?”
    “It's not that simple. Unmarried, I get a room at practically no charge. Married, I don't.”
    “I never said anything to you about marriage, did