Read Online Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin - Free Book Online

as the snakes that grew out of Medusa’s head. He pulled her away and made her look at him.
    â€œYour cousin Janet is not fit to kiss the hem of your slip,” Lincoln said. “She isn’t pretty or nice or any fun, and she thinks she’s perfectly wonderful.”
    â€œShe treads the straight and narrow,” said Polly.
    â€œAny jerk can do that. Besides, how do you know? Maybe she’s sleeping with two painters,” Lincoln said. “I know that when you cry out into the darkness you cry: Oh, why can’t my life be as perfect and effortless as the rest of my family’s?”
    This was so true that it caused Polly to smile.
    â€œI love you the way you are,” Lincoln said. “I think you’re a good, brave soul. I think you are as straight as they come. You are a loyal, true-blue person. You think such awful things about yourself.”
    â€œI can’t help it,” Polly said. “I used to read those women’s magazines at the beauty parlor when I went to get my hair cut, about discovering new things about yourself, and expanding yourself. I used to think: Isn’t it fortunate that my life is so orderly and nice? I didn’t think there would be much to discover. I hate discovering new things about myself. They didn’t say in the magazines that it hurt this much. No one in my family has had to do it. Why do I?”
    â€œBe quiet, Dot,” Lincoln said fiercely. “I really can’t stand for you to compare yourself with those people.”
    â€œThey’re not having affairs!” Polly was now in tears.
    â€œMaybe they are,” Lincoln said, “maybe they’re not. Who would want them?”
    â€œYou don’t know what it’s like for me to be in love with you,” said Polly. “It’s easier for you. You don’t have to live a double life. You don’t have to feel wrong all the time. Every day I think about giving you up.”
    Lincoln put her hand on his chest, right over his heart.
    â€œAre you going to?” he asked.
    â€œI can’t. I just can’t. It would break my spirit,” Polly said. “It’s just so full of confusion and pain. Maybe that’s what love affairs are like. I know you love me, and I can also tell exactly at what point you really need for me not to be here. I lie in bed at home and wonder how you would feel here in this studio with Pete and Dee-Dee running around. I imagine us all around your table. When I’m down here at the end of the day, the same thing happens to me: I need to be home. I need to see the children. I go home and think about you, and you pace around here and think about me.”
    She looked at Lincoln, and there were tears in her eyes. Her face was soft and serious at the same time. Lincoln rarely saw anyone with her sort of refined, clear, serious beauty except the other members of her family, and none of them were quite so pretty as she. Every once in a while he saw someone who had some trace of those features. His adjective to describe this look was Polly’s maiden name, as in “What a very Solo-Miller–looking person.”
    â€œWe need each other,” Lincoln said. “You saved my life, Dottie. I was a low, lonely, miserable soul until you came around. And as for you …”
    â€œWhat was I?” Polly asked.
    â€œYou were so sweet and innocent and out of your mind,” Lincoln said. “You should have seen yourself, Dot. You were quite a sight. I said to myself: This woman is either frantic, or cuckoo, or she is actually falling in love with me. Each time after you left I would drink whatever wine was left in your glass and say to myself: Am I ever going to get to kiss her?”
    â€œWell, you did,” said Polly. “And then some.”
    â€œI was so nervous,” Lincoln said. “I used to get up early in the morning and go to the bakery, and I would stop at that Japanese flower stand and