Read Online Sheltering Rain by Jojo Moyes - Free Book Online

abine cried for almost an hour, unheard in her damp and distant room. She cursed her bloody mother for sending her to this stupid place, cursed her stiff, unfriendly grandmother and her stupid bloody horses, and cursed Thom for briefly letting her believe it might not be so bad after all. Then she cursed Amanda Gallagher, who she just knew would be getting off with Dean Baxter even as she lay there, the Irish ferry system for not shutting down when the weather was crap, and the turquoise shag pile for being so hideous that if anyone ever found out she had stayed in a room that looked like this she would have to emigrate. Forever. Then she sat up and cursed herself for getting purple and blotchy and snotty when she cried, instead of looking sad in the kind of clear-skinned, big-eyed, melancholy way that men found irresistible. “My whole life is a bloody, bloody mess,” she wailed, and then cried some more because it just sounded so much sadder out loud.
    S abine’s grandfather was already seated at the dining table when she came slowly down the stairs. She saw his stick before she saw him, jutting underneath the table between his legs. Then as she came around the corner of the dining room, she saw his back, curved as if into a question mark, resting uncomfortably against the tall-backed dining chair, cushioned by a tartan blanket. The table was laid for three, the vast expanse of mahogany glowing between them, but he was just sitting in the candlelight, staring at nothing.
    â€œAhh,” he said slowly, as she moved into his field of view. “You’re late. Dinner is at eight. Eight.”
    A bony finger gestured toward the wall clock, which informed Sabine that she was some seven minutes late. Sabine gazed back at him, unsure whether to apologize.
    â€œWell, sit down, sit down,” he said, lowering his hand gently onto his lap.
    Sabine looked around her, and then sat opposite him. He was the oldest man she had ever seen. His skin, through which you could almost make out the shape of his skull, was beyond wrinkled; it had divided into hundreds of tiny crevices, like a wetland parched for decades. A thin vein pulsed above his temple, bulging like a worm cast under his skin. Sabine found she could barely look at him; it was somehow too painful.
    â€œSo . . .” his voice trailed downward, as if exhausted by its own flight. “You’re young Sabine.”
    It didn’t seem to require an answer. Sabine merely looked accepting.
    â€œAnd how old are you?” Even his questions trailed downward.
    â€œI’m sixteen,” she said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m sixteen. Sixteen,” she said. Oh, God, he was deaf as well.
    â€œAhh. Sixteen.” He paused. “Good.”
    Her grandmother suddenly appeared from a side door. “Oh, you’re here. Right. I’ll bring in the soup.” In that “you’re here,” she also managed to let Sabine know she was considered late. What was wrong with these people? thought Sabine miserably. It wasn’t as if they were being timed.
    â€œThe dogs have had one of your slippers,” her grandmother called, from the next room, but her grandfather didn’t appear to hear. Sabine, after some internal struggle, decided not to pass the message on. She didn’t want to be responsible for the result.
    The soup was vegetable. Real stuff, rather than canned, with lots of visible bits of potato and cabbage. Even though she would have refused it at home, she ate it, because the cold house had made her hungry. It was, she had to admit, rather good.
    Feeling the need to make some sociable comment, as the three of them sat in silence, she pushed herself slightly upright and announced it. “The soup is nice.”
    Her grandfather slowly lifted his face, draining his soup noisily from his spoon. The whites of his eyes, she noticed, were almost completely milky.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe soup,” she said,