Read Offspring for Free Online Page B

whole new life for themselves. It wasn’t much.
    Amy could feel her hurt. And her fear.
    It crawled across the table to her like a spider and slid across her spine.
    She hadn’t seen Claire in two months now. Eight weeks. It was not much time. But the effects of strain had articulated themselves rapidly. The fine skin beneath the wide brown eyes looked bruised from lack of sleep. There were strands of silver in the long dark hair. Claire’s body had always been lean and tight, even after Luke. Now it seemed to sag somehow, forced in upon itself. As though holding for too long a time a single, shallow breath.
    She wished she could just hug her, hold her and tell her everything would be all right, that everything would be fine—even though it wasn’t going to be all right, it was going to be a long rough haul and there was no use making believe otherwise.
    She did the next best thing. She handed her Melissa across the table.
    “Here. Hold her for a while. I’ll get us some more coffee.”
    Melissa smiled, swiping with her hands, staring up at Claire delightedly, her eyes getting bigger and bigger.
    Claire smiled too, brightening.
    “Melissa!” she said, and started making the sounds people make when they’re holding a baby. Melissa cooed right back at her.
    There’s nothing like three months’ worth of baby for turning you around
, she thought.
    Unless, of course, it’s four in the morning.
    Stop bitching
, she thought.
Things are so much better now
.
    She returned with the coffee.
    “Is Luke going to be all right out there?” Claire asked.
    “Sure. David’ll keep an eye on him. Besides, there’s nothing much to get into except grass and bugs and trees.”
    “You’re by the sea, aren’t you?”
    “Half a mile away. You figure he’ll go that far?”
    “I doubt it. He doesn’t know much about the country.”
    “We’ll take him down later if you want, show you both all the sights. The cliffs down at the point are pretty spectacular.”
    “Those
I don’t want him anywhere near.”
    “Once he sees them I think I can guarantee he’ll be careful.”
    The phone rang. Amy got up and answered it.
    Melissa was holding on to Claire’s finger again, cooing happily.
    Amy listened to the voice on the phone, too amazed to say anything, though there were a thousand things to say.
    The voice went on for what seemed like a very long while. “Wait a minute,” she said.
    And when she came back to the table it was hard to keep the fury off her face. For Claire’s sake, she tried.
    How dare he?
she thought.
    She reached for her baby.
    “It’s for you,” she said. Claire looked puzzled.
    “It’s him,” she said. “It’s Steven. He says he’s coming up here. He says he’s on his way.”

2:43 P.M.
    The day was turning hot and slightly humid for this time of year.
    David was with Will Campbell under the deck, the tarps pulled back so that Campbell could inspect the lumber.
    Luke was there. He’d asked David’s permission to go through his toolbox. Most of the tools had once belonged to David’s father—which meant that they were basically unused—but David saw no harm in letting the boy root around in there. Through the open door to the shop he could watch Luke pulling out layers of sandpaper and packages of nails and screws to get at the hammers, rasps and screwdrivers underneath. He knew Luke was listening, interested for some reason in what they had to say, though he doubted the boy could understand very much of it.
    They were standing by a pile of twelve-foot-long two-by-sixes tinted green, southern yellow pine thatthey’d use for the bottom layer, heavily treated against damp rot and insects. Planning the attack on the addition.
    Will Campbell was a thin rangy man of about fifty, his face so deeply lined and tanned that to David he always seemed to be frowning.
    He stamped out the butt of his Pall Mall. His hand moved gracefully over the board he was sighting.
    “Pretty good,” he said.
    That