Read Things Unsaid: A Novel for Free Online

either.
    He hoped Jules could help. Aida was a liability: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours.” Bob had little that he could call his own.
    It wasn’t easy to admit that he had become a doctor for the lifestyle—not to heal others. His mother had died while giving birth to his youngest brother in a ramshackle hovel near the Los Angeles oilrigs of the 1930s. He was only three. His drunk of a father mostly ignored him and his three other brothers, so the baby brother was sent to live with an aunt. Bob became the youngest who still lived at home, with his older brother Wilson watching over him. His father didn’t waste any time getting a housekeeper/stepmother who dressed him up in starched pastel-pink pinafores with lacy hems and hair bows, a stale memory. Soon all his friends called him “Barbie,” and that was way before Barbie dolls. His brothers had trouble saying “Bobby,” and the dreaded nickname stuck. Ever since, he had never been very comfortable around girls and then women. Only guys.
    After their father died from an alcohol binge, Bob’s brothers took out huge loans to pay for his medical school tuition at UCLA, even though they themselves were living from paycheck to paycheck. Bob promised to pay them back by covering the tuition of any nephew who was accepted into a medical program. Charlie, his brother Wilson’s son, had only been an infant at the time, so no one knew, of course, if he would have to make good on his promise.
    At Montefiore Hospital he became engaged to Nancy Sanders—not good looking by anyone’s standards, not even by a close girlfriend’s generous and kind opinion, but she was refined and came from a good family. So he would be happy enough with her. Besides, she was the head nurse, and studious. She was good company. Not too quiet, not too noisy. Like Goldilocks. And not dumb, like some of the others. She would be a fine mother for his children. With his intellect and her slightly lesser one, their kids wouldn’t be just average in the smarts department.
    How could he ever forget that phone call? His fate. Dismissing his class at the sound of the bell, he had been bone tired, too tired to go backto his apartment for a can of warmed-over Campbell’s soup. Massaging the bone at the nape of his neck, his temples tender, but not exactly painful, he had cranked his neck back and forth, left to right, listening to it crack. From bending over cadavers in the medical examination hall—probably from showing the nurses the various vertebrae of the spine. He did have a big head.
    “Hello, this is Bob Whitman, calling for Nancy Sanders. Is she in?” It was so irritating having to identify himself. All the nurses in that dorm were either in his lecture class or his seminar and he didn’t like their knowing his business. Especially not his dating life. Nancy was discreet and he appreciated that. She was gentle and soft spoken, the ideal woman for him.
    “Nope, don’t know when she’ll be back.” Whose voice was that? He thought he recognized her theatrical, almost-singing voice—but it had an alarming association for him. What was it, exactly?
    Of course. It had to be Aida Longo, the one all the other residents laughed about. He never could quite figure out why. Perhaps because she was something of a drama queen. She did resemble Elizabeth Taylor a bit. Was an attention getter. And her voice always seemed several decibels too high whenever he called on her in class. She never knew the answer. He figured she just liked to raise her hand. Aida would make anyone look good escorting her. Nancy—not so much. Bob felt his face get inflamed and hot.
    Within two months of their marriage, he and Aida had purchased a huge white Dutch Colonial on a West Akron hillside, the “good side” of town: Crestview Avenue. Elms and oak trees framed stately homes, set back to look down on those who drove by in envy. Each home had a long, steep driveway