Read Online Loss of Innocence by Richard North Patterson - Free Book Online

unsought knowledge, Whitney sat down again, struggling to understand this fleeting moment of sweetness and all that she had seen before. In her disorientation, she reprised the familiar—the dinner, her father’s toast, her interlude with Peter—touchstones of her evening before stepping through the looking glass. At last she remembered California and Robert Kennedy.
    Walking to the library, she switched on the television, hoping to banish an unwelcome sense of responsibility for her sister.
    The TV crackled on, its black-and-white image casting a glow in the darkened room. Kennedy stood at a podium, looking exhausted yet smiling at the cheers that must mean victory. In his soft Boston-Irish cadence, he said, “I think we can end the divisions within the United States . . .”
    He looked so young, so passionate yet vulnerable, that only a country that still believed in its own possibilities would dare choose him. It was what she had felt at dinner, but could not quite articulate. And then the speech was over, and Bobby waved to the crowd, almost shyly, and was gone.
    Motionless, Whitney half-listened to the commentary that followed. Kennedy had won in California and South Dakota, eclipsing Eugene McCarthy as the primary challenger to Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who still supported the Vietnam War. Buoyed by hope, Whitney decided to check on her sister, the least she could do.
    Removing her shoes, she climbed the stairs, tiptoeing past her parents’ bedroom before she cracked open Janine’s door. He sister’s bed was empty. A shaft of light from the bathroom caused Whitney to peer inside.
    Naked, Janine knelt over the toilet, vomiting into the bowl.
    To Whitney’s startled eyes, she looked much thinner than she remembered. She knelt, resting a hand on Janine’s frail shoulderas she fought off the smell of nausea and sex. With a final retching shudder, Janine sagged, hair touching the rim of the bowl. She stared at her own spewings, unable to look at Whitney.
    “It’s okay,” Whitney said softly.
    Janine shook her head. “You can’t tell them,” she said in a dispirited whisper. “I drank too much, that’s all.”
    That’s not all
, Whitney wanted to say. But pleading in her sister’s eyes forced her to murmur, “I promise.”
    Mute, Janine tried to stand. Pulling her upright, Whitney walked her to the bed, arms around her sister’s waist. “I’m okay now,” Janine said wanly. “I just need to sleep.”
    She climbed in bed, pulling a sheet up to her chin. For a time, Whitney sat beside her as Janine stared at the ceiling. With a squeeze of her sister’s hand, Whitney said, “Sleep well.”
    Returning to the bathroom, she flushed the toilet, using tissue paper to dab away the last traces of her sister’s sickness. Then she walked softly through the bedroom, pausing to look back at Janine. Her sister lay in the same position, still staring into nothingness. Soundlessly, Whitney closed the door, heading downstairs to retrieve her shoes.
    A sound came from the library. She had left on the television, Whitney realized. Entering the room, she heard a newsman’s urgent cadence.
    Senator Kennedy has been shot . . .
    Involuntarily, Whitney cried out.
    The first report is that the wound to his head may be serious . . .
    Whitney stared at the screen, caught between disbelief and the sense that this felt terribly real, a tragedy materializing from deep within her subconscious. In reflexive memory, the announcement of President Kennedy’s death issued from a loudspeaker at Rosemary Hall, opening a fault line between the future and a moreinnocent past. Her parents had never liked John Kennedy. But he was the president as Whitney ripened from adolescence toward young adulthood; unlike the ancient Eisenhower, he was a vital and articulate man, evoking the promise she hoped someday to find in herself. Then he was dead. Now Bobby might die, as King had.
    No
, she told herself.
    She could not