Read Online Ripples on a Pond by Joy Dettman - Free Book Online Page B

bottled in South Australia.
    Took up his biro again.
    Dear sister/spouse,
    I have taken into my hand a book I haven’t looked at in fifteen years, and been given a message from God. I love you . . .
    His pen stilled. It was too bloody sad; and whether he liked it or not, she was right. They’d made a mistake and it had to be erased.
    â€˜Don’t come back, Morrie,’ she’d said when he’d phoned her. ‘We’ll get over it.’
    Maybe they would. He’d grown accustomed to losing those he’d learnt to rely on. But he had to let her know the situation with the estate and Lorna. Give Lorna the ammunition of an eight-hour marriage and she’d do her worst. She’d promised him that much after the funeral, when he’d called a taxi and paid the driver in advance to take her home – and threatened to toss her into it headfirst if she didn’t get in under her own steam.
    He’d seen the worst of Lorna that day. He didn’t need more.

F LESH A ND B LOOD
    A mber Morrison, carried unconscious from the scene of a car accident ten years ago, had all but erased her previous existence. Her second and finer life as Elizabeth Duckworth began in a hospital bed three days after the accident. She’d sustained serious head injuries, had undergone brain surgery at a time when brain surgery had been a hit-and-miss procedure. The surgeon had not damaged Amber Morrison’s unique mind. She’d inherited Archie Foote’s lack of empathy for his fellow man, his lack of shame, of guilt, of love and his cat-like nine lives.
    Possessions had been important to Archie, though not vital. He’d shed them easily enough when forced to lighten his load so he might move faster.
    When, after those three days she’d regained consciousness in that hospital bed, she’d smelt the scent of clean. The first movement she’d seen when she’d opened her eyes was that of a white-clad nursing sister. The first touch she’d felt was that of a gentle hand stroking her cheek, the first sound, a gentle voice.
    â€˜Wake up, dear. Time to wake up now.’
    That’s all Amber knew of her first day back from the dead. Clean. Gentle. Dear.
    Perhaps it was the second day, perhaps a second white-clad nursing sister. The dear hadn’t changed.
    â€˜Can you tell me your name, dear?’
    Her mind had been working well enough to wonder what had happened to her possessions, and to know that her well-documented name would make that gentle hand flinch from her.
    For the murder of her husband Norman, Amber had rotted for sixteen years in a state asylum for the criminally insane. Two years prior to the accident, she’d been reclassified, pronounced sane enough – or too old and frail to be a threat to society. They’d given her a pension and a selection of pills. They’d found her a room in a derelict boarding house where the scum of the city had settled, and for months they’d kept an eye on her. She’d swallowed her pills, controlled her anger – for a time. Then they’d gone away and left her to her own devices.
    Most can tolerate a well-mannered snore. Few light sleepers could tolerate that rabid dog, choking snarl of a drunk who slept seven nights a week a thin wall away from their bed. Night after night, month after month, Amber had lain in her bed cursing the snore and the snorer.
    He’d brought back bad memories. He’d raised that red fog of anger that at times misted her mind and wiped out all thought of consequence.
    She had inadvertently silenced that snore on the night of the accident. Hadn’t meant to. Had risen from her bed only to find something with which to plug her ears, but when the red mist had cleared, he’d stopped snoring and she’d been standing over him, holding a pillow down.
    Made him comfortable on that pillow. Tucked him in tight, then escaped the building, aware she’d need to escape the