Read Keeping Time: A Novel for Free Online Page B

return it. It belonged with Michael and his family, not Dennis or Lenny.
    “You’re not talking sensibly, Mum. You can’t go to the United States alone.” Dennis, beside himself. “It’s impossible.”
    Daisy, laughing lightly. “No, it’s not.” Wondering if he had always had so little faith in her. And, if not, when exactly it had begun. When had she crossed some unwritten threshold into an incompetent, doddering old age? Wondering, too, if Paul would have thought like him or if he would have been like Lenny—who, she was sure, was going to be happy when he heard.
    That is if he ever got around to calling her back.
    “Why? Why do you want to go?” Dennis, fully agitated. Both of his hands on the table, palms down, ten fingers thumping like pistons. “Where will you stay? What will you do?” Irritated. Frustrated. Totally thrown.
    “I have a cousin in New York. On Long Island. I’ and face drip

NINE
    ANN PATTERSON, READING DAISY’S LETTER, standing in the kitchen, a field of noise and activity. Six of her seventeen grandchildren, the preschoolers, were on the loose. Two of the younger ones were using her thick legs as goalposts. Ann, rereading the letter twice. She would have read it again but a whiff from the oven reminded her that she had two trays of chicken nuggets and a tray of french fries ready to be pulled. Quickly refolding the letter, hurrying to rescue the food from near certain charring.
    She didn’t get another chance to look at the letter until around nine that night, settling down heavily in the recliner in the finally quiet house to watch TV, moments after the eldest of her five daughters, Elisabeth—harried and exhausted, rather more so than usual because her husband, Richard, was away on business, on top of which Elisabeth had had to work later than usual—had gone home after picking up her three youngest sons, Michael, Josh, and David. Ann, unfolding the letter, reading it again. Thinking.
    A cousin Daisy. Her mother’s sister’s daughter, her aunt Meredith’s daughter.
    Ann, thinking hard, trying to find and gather crumbs of information about Cousin Daisy. Ann, knowing her mother had left England whenshe married Ann’s father, knowing her mother had had a sister, Meredith, knowing Meredith had had two daughters, Doreen and Daisy. But Ann had only been to England on that one dreadful, fateful trip when she was six and had met her aunt Meredith—a trip she would never forget. She had never met Daisy or Doreen, who were teenagers at the time. After that trip, communications abruptly stopped. Ties, broken and forgotten. Her mother, gone now eleven years.
    And here this Cousin Daisy was asking if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition to stay a few weeks while she took care of some very important business in New York. Saying she would come just as soon as Ann gave her the okay and would stay only long enough to complete the business. She hoped it wouldn’t be more than a few weeks.
    Ann, rereading the letter again, shuddering. Torn. In two even pieces, not shreds. On the one hand, she was sort of interested in meeting this cousin. It might be nice to try to resurrect family connections, to reconnect, to try again after all those decades.
    On the other hand, it would be an imposition. It was hard for Ann to imagine another set of legs, another mouth emitting sounds, another belly to fill. The house was big enough, and there were plenty of spare bedrooms. It was just that there were already so many people using it as a home base. Usually by the time the various family members had cleared out for the day,. Taking it all initDaisy Phillips it was almost time to head off to bed. She needed to be up early to receive the first round of grandchildren. How could she possibly have the time or energy for a houseguest? And how would a houseguest be able to stand the unrelenting noise, chaos, disorder, high volume, high voltage?
    And what if Daisy was just like her mother?
    Ann, sighing. She