Read Blue Angel for Free Online Page B

its job, lets them see Sherrie’s garden from the table.
    They’d inherited the garden from the old woman who sold them the house and who’d held out for a buyer who promised to maintain her flower and vegetable beds. Sherrie would have promised anything to escape the Euston residence hall where they were living as dorm parents, an existence so public that only thanks to desire’s resourcefulness was Ruby ever conceived. But she’d kept her promise. Though almost nothing remains of Ethel Turner’s flowers—perennial is a cruel jest here in northern Vermont—everything’s been replaced with plants bought from the nursery or coaxed from seed. The garden’s flourishing, thanks to an innate gift that must have come via DNA from Sherrie’s grandparents. She’d spent her own formative years in city apartments and later, emergency rooms.
    At this season, the garden looks like an archaeological tomb excavation in progress: tidy beds of clippings, thatches of straw, tender crowns tucked under layers of soggy leaves, evidence of rituals intended to ensure the dead’s rebirth. And that, precisely, is the difference between Swenson and Sherrie. Sherrie believes that spring will come, whereas Swenson’s always shocked when the snow melts and the first crocuses appear. He envies Sherrie’s optimistic faith. Well, someone has to have it.
    He peers into the refrigerator, less hungry than eager for clues about last night’s dinner: leftover fettucine, sticky with butter and cheese. Sherrie tries to watch their diet but knows that there are times when nothing will do but big globs of cholesterol. They’d eaten on the living room couch, in front of the evening news, both of them so grateful for not having to talk that the low-level edginess of their car ride home from the meeting was smoothed out of existence, replaced by pure animal comfort.
    As he reaches for the phone, he’s thinking of how to tell Sherrie how much he loves her, treasures their life together. The phone rings, preemptively, startling him. His telepathic wife!
    â€œSweetheart!” he says.
    â€œEr…um,” says a female voice.
    Oops. A student. Clearly. She doesn’t know what to call him. Mr. Swenson. Professor. Ted. Definitely not sweetheart . Students never phone him at home, though he gives them his number at the start of each semester. He pretends he’s joking when he tells them to feel free to call if their problem is life-threatening. A student with a life-threatening problem at…nine-twenty in the morning?
    â€œIt’s Angela Argo?” the voice says. “We were supposed to have a conference at nine? I’ve been waiting outside your office? I thought I had the wrong day or…the wrong time? But we talked about it yesterday…?”
    Finally Swenson remembers. He was so grateful for getting through class, he would have promised anyone anything.
    â€œYou’re right,” says Swenson. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œNo, I’m sorry,” she says. “Did I wake you? I’m totally totally sorry.”
    â€œI was awake.”
    â€œOh my God. Were you writing? Did I disturb you from writing?”
    â€œI wasn’t writing,” Swenson says, more harshly than he intends.
    â€œI’m really sorry,” Angela says.
    â€œStop apologizing. Stay where you are. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
    â€œOkay,” she says. “Are you sure?”
    â€œPositive,” he says.
    For a moment he stalls by the phone. He should have taken early retirement. In one of the college’s failed attempts to stave off financial ruin, the tenured faculty was offered a year’s salary to get out. But like convicts who love their shackles, nearly all chose not to escape. He could be staying home, writing, reading, watching TV, instead of wasting yet another day of his one and only life.
    Meanwhile he’s got fifteen minutes