Read Online A Thread So Thin by Marie Bostwick - Free Book Online Page A

completely different from how they were a hundred years ago.”
    “Oh, more recently than that . For my mother, marriage wasn’t a question to be considered. It was just what you did . What everybody did.” She turned her eyes back toward the road and was quiet for a moment before going on in a softer, more introspective tone, oddly unitalicized.
    “I was asked once, when I was an undergrad at Penn State. There was a boy, Drake. He was an engineering major.” She laughed quietly and shook her head. “Imagine. Me being proposed to by an engineer. We met at a peace rally. This was back during the Vietnam War, you know. He was a sweet man. Loved Vivaldi. I’d never thought an engineer would be such a music fan. He was surprising in so many ways….
    “Anyway, he asked me out for coffee after the rally, and the next thing I knew, we were dating. I never thought he’d propose. When he asked, I actually thought it was some kind of joke. But after a minute I realized he wasn’t kidding. It was such a shock. I said no right off, almost before he’d finished asking. He got angry, hurt. Understandable, I suppose.” She shrugged. “I never saw him again after. I don’t know what happened to him. Probably he married someone else. He was the marrying kind.”
    “And you’re not?”
    How could she know that? At twenty, twenty-one, or twenty-two, is it possible that she absolutely knew that she wasn’t the sort to marry? And the way she’d said no to Drake’s proposal, even before he finished proposing, without even stopping to think about it—did that make her enlightened or narrow-minded? Was Professor Williams’s refusal to consider the possibility of marriage any better than her mother’s refusal to consider the possibility of not marrying?
    “I never wanted to have to answer to someone else,” she said. “As a single woman, my time, my life, my opinions are my own. My mother, on the other hand…After my father died, she couldn’t even decide what to have for breakfast. Seriously. When we’d go out to eat, she couldn’t make a choice, so she’d just hand the menu to me and let me order for her, just the way Dad had for all those years. My mother never had an opinion that my father didn’t give her. Except perhaps about my refusing Drake’s proposal. She was furious with me!
    “‘What were you thinking!’” the professor said in a nasally imitation of her mother. “‘You’re not a beautiful girl, Selena, and you’ve got too many ideas, too much education. That kind of thing scares men off. He might have been your only chance! You’ll be alone, Selena, and lonely. For the rest of your life.’”
    Professor Williams pressed her lips together. “My mother was a stupid woman. And cruel.”
    She’d get no argument from me on that. What an awful thing to say to your own daughter. And not just awful, but wrong. Professor Williams was beautiful. With her big brown eyes and riot of curls, she was actually kind of exotic looking. I bet lots of men found her very attractive. Not every guy is looking for a Barbie clone. If they were, Garrett would never have given me a second look. But still…
    It was such a personal question to ask. If I hadn’t needed to know so badly and she hadn’t already revealed so much, I’m sure I’d never have found the guts to ask. But I did and she had.
    “And…were you? Are you?”
    “Lonely?” She puffed in disgust. “Of course I am. But so was my mother. She spent her whole life catering to my father, but he didn’t have the slightest idea who she was. And what’s worse, neither did she. I know who I am, Liza. At least I know that .”
    She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and stepped on the gas, taking the New Bern exit at fifty. “Yes, I’m lonely. Hell, yes, I am. Isn’t everybody? Aren’t you?”

6
Evelyn Dixon
    “B ut why do you want to come?” she asked warily. “Why now?” I paused for a moment, reminding myself to be patient, but