Read Online Maggy's Child by Karen Robards - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karen Robards
Ads: Link
Davidand Lyle, sitting outdoors on a bench in the rose garden, arms around each other, smiling, looking the very epitome of the happy family they had never been. It captured the three of them very credibly, feature for feature, except for the joy in their expressions and the pose which must have sprung from somewhere deep in the artist’s heart.
For David had painted it, David with his wonderful talent that Lyle ridiculed as “sissy.”
Maggy looked at the painting for a moment longer, then abruptly sat down on the edge of her bed, buried her face in her hands, and wept.
M aggy viewed the afternoon and evening as something to be gotten through. Her wrist ached, but the pain was lessening to the point where, if she did not move her arm too rapidly, she could more or less ignore it. As sprains went, it was not so bad, as she knew from bitter experience. A few days, a little home treatment, and it would heal. And once again no one would ever know that Lyle Forrest was the kind of man who abused his wife.
The golf course at the Club was lush and green, meticulously maintained by dedicated staff and zealously used by avid members. The Club had a name, of course—Willow Creek Country Club—but to its members it was simply the Club. If the implication was that there was no other country club in town, then that was fine. To the elite of Louisville, there wasn’t. The Club did not even have to rely on its enormous initiation fee to keep out the hoi polloi. One had to be invited to join, seconded, vetted, and approved by all the members. Even one “no” vote was enough to derail an application. Not that the Forrests had ever had to do anything so embarrassing as petition for membership. They had belonged to the Club from its inception in the last century. The membership was handed down from generation to generation, world without end.
To Lyle’s oft-expressed disgust, Maggy did not like golf, was terrible at it, and, after a disastrous attempt to learn atthe beginning of her marriage to please her husband, never played. Still, she would have enjoyed standing in the sparkling sunlight drinking in the fresh, crisp spring air along with the other mothers and wives and miscellaneous family members and friends who formed the gallery, if she hadn’t known how excruciating the experience was for David. Waiting silently by the seventeenth hole, she bit her lip as her husband scowled at her son when David’s bungled putt dropped them down to sixth place.
David retrieved his ball, looked up, and met his father’s gaze. Though no one who didn’t know would have noticed anything out of line in Lyle’s expression, David did know and his face paled. Observing impotently from the sidelines, Maggy thought that there was no one in the world she hated as she hated Lyle at that moment. The worst part was that there was absolutely nothing she could do to help her son. Watching Lyle’s tall, spare body twist as he expertly hit the ball while David looked on with misery in his eyes, Maggy felt a rush of malevolence so intense that she almost vibrated with it. For an instant, just an instant, she wished her husband dead. All of her and David’s troubles would be over.…
“Good job!” Standing beside her, Mary Gibbons, whose husband and youngest son were currently in tenth place, flashed Maggy a congratulatory thumbs-up sign as Lyle’s ball rolled neatly into the hole.
“Thanks.” Maggy smiled with false pleasure in her husband’s accomplishment and turned her attention back to the game. David’s next drive was good, long and straight and hard. Maggy let out a silent sigh of relief. Lyle’s, of course, was textbook perfect. Trooping over to the eighteenth hole after them, Maggy gritted her teeth and wished that Lyle would miss his next putt as hard as she had ever wished for anything in her life.
Mary Gibbons’s son took six strokes where he should have needed no more than two for par. John Gibbonsshook his head in playful
For David had painted it, David with his wonderful talent that Lyle ridiculed as “sissy.”
Maggy looked at the painting for a moment longer, then abruptly sat down on the edge of her bed, buried her face in her hands, and wept.
M aggy viewed the afternoon and evening as something to be gotten through. Her wrist ached, but the pain was lessening to the point where, if she did not move her arm too rapidly, she could more or less ignore it. As sprains went, it was not so bad, as she knew from bitter experience. A few days, a little home treatment, and it would heal. And once again no one would ever know that Lyle Forrest was the kind of man who abused his wife.
The golf course at the Club was lush and green, meticulously maintained by dedicated staff and zealously used by avid members. The Club had a name, of course—Willow Creek Country Club—but to its members it was simply the Club. If the implication was that there was no other country club in town, then that was fine. To the elite of Louisville, there wasn’t. The Club did not even have to rely on its enormous initiation fee to keep out the hoi polloi. One had to be invited to join, seconded, vetted, and approved by all the members. Even one “no” vote was enough to derail an application. Not that the Forrests had ever had to do anything so embarrassing as petition for membership. They had belonged to the Club from its inception in the last century. The membership was handed down from generation to generation, world without end.
To Lyle’s oft-expressed disgust, Maggy did not like golf, was terrible at it, and, after a disastrous attempt to learn atthe beginning of her marriage to please her husband, never played. Still, she would have enjoyed standing in the sparkling sunlight drinking in the fresh, crisp spring air along with the other mothers and wives and miscellaneous family members and friends who formed the gallery, if she hadn’t known how excruciating the experience was for David. Waiting silently by the seventeenth hole, she bit her lip as her husband scowled at her son when David’s bungled putt dropped them down to sixth place.
David retrieved his ball, looked up, and met his father’s gaze. Though no one who didn’t know would have noticed anything out of line in Lyle’s expression, David did know and his face paled. Observing impotently from the sidelines, Maggy thought that there was no one in the world she hated as she hated Lyle at that moment. The worst part was that there was absolutely nothing she could do to help her son. Watching Lyle’s tall, spare body twist as he expertly hit the ball while David looked on with misery in his eyes, Maggy felt a rush of malevolence so intense that she almost vibrated with it. For an instant, just an instant, she wished her husband dead. All of her and David’s troubles would be over.…
“Good job!” Standing beside her, Mary Gibbons, whose husband and youngest son were currently in tenth place, flashed Maggy a congratulatory thumbs-up sign as Lyle’s ball rolled neatly into the hole.
“Thanks.” Maggy smiled with false pleasure in her husband’s accomplishment and turned her attention back to the game. David’s next drive was good, long and straight and hard. Maggy let out a silent sigh of relief. Lyle’s, of course, was textbook perfect. Trooping over to the eighteenth hole after them, Maggy gritted her teeth and wished that Lyle would miss his next putt as hard as she had ever wished for anything in her life.
Mary Gibbons’s son took six strokes where he should have needed no more than two for par. John Gibbonsshook his head in playful
Similar Books
