Read Someone to watch over me for Free Online Page B

his business will fail and we won’t have anything to eat. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if too many people feel that way. We’re all afraid down deep inside. I think it hits men harder.”
    Robert, a born and raised bon vivant, had frequently said surprisingly wise things since 1929, when brother and sister were forced to get to know each other instead of merely passing through the same homes, sharing the same parents, and meeting mostly at parties. She wondered if he’d always been this perceptive, and just never had to use his brains and heart. Perhaps the trait had lain dormant for most of his life.
    “Including you?“ Lily asked.
    “Nope, not me,“ Robert said.
    He got out and opened the garage and came back and moved the enormous butter-yellow automobile inside. When the Duesie was safely put away, he said, “Let’s go look at the river.”
    Instead of going inside, they went to what Lily thought of as the “viewing bench“ under a tree, where she often sat and brushed Agatha, her perpetually shedding adopted dog, while she contemplated the water traffic passing below. What was inside those barges being pushed along by tugs? Where had they come from? Where were they going?
    When they were comfortably seated, Robert went on as if there hadn’t been a break in the conversation. “I never considered when we were growing up that I’d have to get a job in order to provide heat, food, or a home for a wife and children. I thought I’d wait for the right woman, as rich as we once were, and go right on living the same kind of life our parents did—traveling, dabbling in investments, playing polo, drinking too much, going to parties, wearing outrageously priced clothing.
    “Instead,“ he went on, “I spent the early morning today preparing to tear down a shed in the woods and thinking what great wood it was and what I might be able to do with it. Bookshelves for my bedroom. Another bench like this one.”
    Lily looked askance. She had no idea he thought he knew how to do either of these projects.
    “Of course, I won’t take the wood,“ Robert went on. “It would look selfish and greedy to the Harbinger boys for what they think is a rich man, who obviously doesn’t know how to build a thing, to grab it for himself. The boys will make better use of it than I ever could. Maybe sell it to buy food for their family or make a nice piece of furniture for their mother.“
    “I have the same problem with Jack Summer,“ Lily admitted. “He thinks we own the newspaper. He supposes we’re dopes for always having to consult with Mr. Prinney over newspaper decisions. That we’re wealthy idiots who can’t make a simple decision for ourselves.“
    “And imagine what the townspeople had to say about our guests last April when we made them pay to stay at Grace and Favor.“
    “Do you think people knew they were paying guests?“ Lily asked.
    Robert looked at her for a long moment with astonishment. “Did you suppose they didn’t? Lily, gossip is the constant staple of a small town, even if the catastrophes we had here hadn’t been reported in papers across the world. Or at least this country. I’ll bet some of the locals are still chewing it over and criticizing us for being such greedy gerties.“
    “We made a mistake right up front, didn’t we?“ Lily said. This revelation had been forcing itself on her ever since the greengrocer spoke to her. How could she have been so dim? “We’ve been pretending since we came here that we really own the house and Uncle Horatio’s assets, haven’t we? We should have thought it out.“
    “We didn’t know that,“ Robert reminded her. “We were both feeling sorry for ourselves for proving conclusively how absolutely useless we were without Dad’s fortune. We were embarrassed at suddenly being poor. And we were frightened and humiliated by our failures already, like almost everyone is now.“
    “But why’s it taken us so long to figure it out?“ Lily