Read Online Kiss Mommy Goodbye by Joy Fielding - Free Book Online

move and motivation—Sisyphus pushing the giant boulder—until she collapsed under the weight of it all, shouting, “Yes, you’re right. It’s all my fault.”
    “… she seemed to change,” Danny Vogel was explaining.
    “When was that?”
    “It’s hard to pinpoint exactly because I only saw her on rare social occasions and they got rarer all the time.” He paused, collecting his saliva and then swallowing it. “But when I first met Donna she seemed fairly outgoing, and through the years she just seemed to get more withdrawn. She stopped having company over to her home—”
    “Objection,” Donna’s lawyer said, rising. “This witness is not in a position to state who did or who did not come into the Cressys’ home.”
    “Sustained.”
    Danny Vogel looked confused.
    “Mr. Vogel,” Ed Gerber continued, picking up the dangling thread, “how many times were you, yourself, invited to the Cressy house for either dinner or any type of social gathering?”
    Danny paused to reflect. “In those first few years of their marriage, I’d say several times a year. After Adam was born, maybe once. After Sharon, not at all. Once,” he began, looking toward Ed Gerber, who, obviously knowing what the witness intended to say, indicated that he was to go on, “she came by to pick Victor up from work, and Victor and I were waiting on the street—she was late—and I leaned in the car to say hello, and Victor suggested that Renee and I come over for a barbeque dinner at their place one night the next week and she said no, it was absolutely out of the question. Victor looked very embarrassed. Needless to say,
I
was embarrassed.”
    “Did she offer an explanation?”
    “No. That was all she said. It was very strange.”
    “Did you notice anything else that was ‘strange’?” Ed Gerber asked, repeating and emphasizing the final word.
    Danny Vogel shook his head. “Not really. Oh, except her hair. It was a bright carrot red. I’d just seen her the previous week at a party and it had been blonde.”
    “So you did have occasion to see Donna Cressy at various social functions?”
    “Oh yes. We moved in roughly the same circles. Our office was a friendly one. Someone was always having a party.”
    “Over the years, was there any discernible change in Mrs. Cressy’s behavior at those functions?”
    “Well, like I said, she was becoming more withdrawn. It seemed each party, she said less and less. She hardly ever smiled. She had a lot of colds. There always seemed to be something wrong with her—”
    “Objection.” Mr. Stamler sounded ineffably disgruntled.
    “Sustained,” the judge said. “The court will draw its own conclusions, Mr. Vogel.”
    Danny Vogel seemed genuinely upset he had caused the court any problem. “I’m sorry, your honor,” he said quietly, then, mindful of his previous admonition, repeated it in a louder voice.
    “Did you ever have one of those parties in your own home, Mr. Vogel?” Ed Gerber asked, knowing he had.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “To which the Cressys were invited?”
    Again, a positive reply.
    “When was that?”
    “A little more than two years ago,” Danny Vogel answered. “My fortieth birthday.”
    Donna knew the date precisely. It was twenty-five monthsago. Nine months exactly before Sharon was born. The night Sharon was conceived.
    “Could you describe precisely what happened from the time the Cressys arrived at your party?”
    Donna thought back to the party. What could he possibly have to say?
    “Well, they were late. The last ones to arrive. But Victor was very friendly, cordial. Donna kind of hung back. She didn’t smile when she came in; she seemed distracted. I just figured she was in another of her moods—”
    “Objection.”
    The objection having been ruled on and sorted out, the witness continued with his testimony. “Anyway, she didn’t say much that I was aware of. Every time I looked over in her direction she was just standing off by herself. She just