Read Homebody: A Novel for Free Online

register with her. "He really misses his wife?"
    Jay shook his head. "I should have said his ex-wife, complete with ugly court battles over custody of their baby daughter. She claimed Nellie—that's the little girl—she claimed Nellie wasn't his. He said she was a drug-pumping drunk."
    "Nasty."
    "Yeah, but he was right on all counts. The baby was definitely his. And the wife was high on about five different drugs when she piled the car into a bridge abutment. The little girl—she was almost two by then—the mother had her in her safety seat."
    "But it didn't help?"
    "Might have, except that the safety seat wasn't attached to the car. You can't expect a mother to think of everything."
    "My Lord," said Cindy. "He must have been crazy with grief."
    "Rage is more like it. We thought at first he might kill himself. Then we were afraid he might go out and kill the judges and lawyers and social workers who decided a baby needs its mother and they shouldn't be judgmental about lifestyle differences when the drug use hadn't, after all, been proved in the criminal courts."
    "A baby does need its mother," Cindy said softly.
    "A baby needs good parents, both of them," said Jay. "Don't get me started."
    "What if I just want to get you stopped?"
    Jay looked at her, a bit nonplussed. "You were the one asking about Don."
    Cindy looked back at the house. "He does these fix-ups to be alone?"
    "Oh, he wanted to be alone. Some of us were clinging to him so tight that he finally told us to leave him alone, he promised not to kill anybody, including himself, if we'd just give him room to breathe."
    "Good to have friends, though," she said.
    "Yeah, well, friends aren't replacements for a lost child, I can tell you that. And there was Don, bankrupt from the expense of fighting to get Nellie back. He barely had enough to bury her. Lost his contracting business. So he borrows to buy a rundown house out in the county, a two-bedroom ranch that wasn't quite as good quality as a mobile home. But Don's good at what he does so... here he is now, no debts, cash in the bank, and this is the house he's going to fix up."
    "So he turns his loneliness and grief into the restoration of beautiful old houses."
    "The ones he started with weren't all that beautiful. You make it sound romantic."
    "Not romantic, but maybe a little heroic. Don't you think?" asked Cindy.
    "I think Don figures that as long as he can't be dead, he might as well do this."
    With that, Jay gave her one last cheesy smile and headed back to his minivan. Cindy went for her car, too, not caring that the house was left unlocked behind her. Don would be back to put on a new door. It was his house now. She'd make sure of that.
    It was already almost dark. The wind had picked up and there were clouds coming in over the trees to the west. Autumn coming at last. Real autumn, not just turning leaves but cold weather, too. Cold rain. She hated the cold but she also looked forward to it. A change. The end of the old year. Christmas coming. Memories. People she missed. Melancholy. Yes, that was it, melancholy. That's what autumn was good for.
    But a man like Don, it was always autumn for him, wasn't it? To lose a child and know that if only a judge had decided differently, if only the law was different, your daughter would be alive.
    At least he knew that he had spent everything he had to try to get her back. But would that be consolation to him? Cindy doubted it. She thought of her father. A peaceable, law-abiding man. But he worked with his body, his muscled, powerful body. And there were times when she could see that it took all his strength not to hit somebody. She never saw him hit anybody, but she saw him want to, and in a way that was almost more frightening, because she knew that if he ever did, it would be the most terrible blow.
    If Don Lark really was anything like her father, it must eat him alive inside, always wondering if he shouldn't have just said screw the law and kidnapped his daughter