Read Crying Child for Free Online Page A

fiction and a few new books I had been wanting to read. Ran had catholic tastes and evidently they were hereditary; some of the volumes were cracked and rubbed with years of use. But none of them caught my interest. The grand piano drew me; I don’t play well, but I like to play, and I hadn’t been able to indulge in a piano of my own, not in my thin-walled apartment and on my thin salary. But my mind shrank back from sound. The house was utterly still. Mary probably wouldn’t have been disturbed by my playing, so long asI didn’t burst into the “Revolutionary Etude” or one of the more vigorous Beethoven sonatas. But it seemed—somehow—dangerous to disturb that silence.
    With that kind of thought for company, I was relieved when I finally heard the car. It stopped in front of the house with a squeal of brakes and I recognized the driving style. Ran always drove that way, impatient with the time it took to get from the place where he was to the place where he wanted to be. I went out into the hall to meet him. My heart was beating more quickly than it should have done.
    The front door opened and there he was. He was almost too handsome—not in the sleek leading-man style, but with a dark, hard leanness that most women find even more attractive. My stomach twisted with the old familiar feeling. I had it under control immediately, but it scared me; I had hoped, and believed, that that weakness was gone for good.
    “Jo! My God, it’s good to see you!”
    He dropped his briefcase and put his arms around me. It was a brief, brotherly hug—nothing more. Then he held me at arms’ length and grinned at me.
    “You’ve lost ten pounds. No, make that eight pounds. What are you doing out there, starving?”
    “Seven pounds,” I said. “Dieting, not starving.”

    “We’ve missed you.” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me toward the parlor. “I wish you’d give up this crazy idea of earning your own living and—”
    “Uh-uh,” I said. “No more of that. We agreed, remember?”
    “Okay, okay. How was the trip? Will meet you all right? What about a drink?”
    “No thanks.” I dropped into a chair and watched as a bar materialized out of what had appeared to be a Chippendale sideboard. “Yes, Bill—Will—whatever his name is met me. And told me off, but good. Has he had the gall to tell you what he thinks of your wife?”
    Ran stood staring down at his glass, moving it gently back and forth so that the ice tinkled delicately.
    “What do you think about Mary? You’ve had a chance to talk to her.”
    “I don’t know where to start,” I said helplessly. I did know; but I couldn’t say it, not yet. Not in the comfortable room with lamplight yellow and warm, and the night shut out by flowered draperies. “She’s so much worse than I expected. What happened? I can’t believe she would flip over something like—”
    “Jo, you are so damned young. Haven’t you learned that you don’t know Mary—or any other human being—any more than they know you?You see the one tenth that shows above the surface. You never see the pressures, the cracks, and weaknesses that develop underneath.”
    “Weaknesses, is it? You sound like good old Will. What the hell gives him the right to analyze Mary?”
    “He’s a damned good doctor. He’s here on the island by choice, because he loves the place. He could have had his pick of jobs.”
    “That’s beautiful. It doesn’t alter the fact that he’s opinionated, antagonistic, and ignorant.”
    Ran looked at me in mild surprise.
    “What did he say to get you so worked up? With me he’s humble and definitely sympathetic.”
    “He says she’s spoiled. Neurotic. Weak. Childish.”
    “Come on, Jo. Will wouldn’t—”
    “Will did. He doesn’t like me, either.”
    “He doesn’t—” Ran’s baffled stare changed to a look of amusement. “Oh, Lord, I forgot. I should have warned you. Will is scared of women—young, pretty, healthy women, anyhow. That