Read Online Sleight of Hand by Kate Wilhelm - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kate Wilhelm
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
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knew that was unnecessary. Connie was not up to initiating anything.
For weeks that was the routine she followed. Joan kept a close watch on Connie and kept reducing the medications carefully.
"It was like watching someone emerge from a coma," Adele said. "First a finger twitches, or a toe. The flutter of an eyelid. It took months before she was clean."
The platter was empty and their dinners arrived, grilled halibut steaks, pesto mashed potatoes, salads.
In spite of herself, Barbara had been drawn into the drama of Connie's grief, marriage, addiction. "Didn't you talk to her? You could see the pattern, the isolation, separation from her friends, the whole works."
"Early on it wouldn't have done any good. She was an addict," Adele said dryly.
"You ever try to reason with an addict?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Later, I tried, but she wouldn't have it. As the drugs left her system, the grief flooded back.
She was not yet done with grieving. It had been put on chemical hold. She was passive, silent, unquestioning, just accepted pain and guilt as her due. And she would not hear a word about Jay. He had been trying to help, she insisted. She had needed him, and he needed her."
She snorted. "She said he understood what she was going through because his first wife had abandoned him and deprived him of all visitation rights to his two children.
They were dead to him, just as much as her child was dead to her. She had the impression that the daughter was a hopeless psychotic locked up in a state institution, and the son had turned to a gay lifestyle and had cut all ties to both parents. I asked if Jay had told her that and she didn't know. It was what she believed. I asked if she'd like to meet her stepchildren."
Chapter 10
Adele had to persuade Connie. Although at first she shrank from the idea of meeting anyone at all, much less someone who might be ill, she was too apathetic to offer strenuous resistance to Adele s determination to make the meeting happen. Stephanie and Reggie were harder to convince, she said.
Barbara stopped her. "Who's Reggie?"
Adele laughed, a short almost barking kind of laughter as much in derision as mirth.
"She's an unpublished writer with a folder full of rejection slips to prove it. She's about thirty-one, thirty-two, and she's been with Eve and Stephanie for nearly six years. The first companion for Eve who would stay. At first it was a job, no more than that. Kept a close eye on Eve when Stephanie was at the shop. Anyway, Reggie had written a short story in a writing class at the U of O, and the teacher thought it was a mess. I read it. A mess. She graduated, got a job, but kept thinking of the story and came around to agreeing with the teacher. She had tried to cram too much into too small a space. It was novel material. A fantasy novel full of weird creatures and other worlds. Lots of magic. She's been working on it for four years now, and it's grown again. She's thinking trilogy. So, even if the pay is very low, she has a room of her own, two now that Eric's gone, a lot of time off, nothing much to do except think and plot when she's earning her pay. Ideal situation for her."
Adele smiled, then said, "But a funny thing happened over the years. Reggie has become a big sister. She's a big girl, good-natured and a great sister. She's as protective of Eve as Stephanie and Eric. They go bike riding, walk to the university library, bike to the public library and through their neighborhood. They made a garden together and tend it. Cook together. They even bicker a little. A wonderful big sister. And she was really opposed to having Connie butt in."
She looked out the window, remembering that scene. "What on earth made you think I'd agree to having Jay's new wife come here?" Stephanie had demanded.
"What does she want from us?" Reggie had said.
"She should meet her stepchildren."
"She didn't set any speed records getting around to it," Reggie muttered.
Adele told them a little about
For weeks that was the routine she followed. Joan kept a close watch on Connie and kept reducing the medications carefully.
"It was like watching someone emerge from a coma," Adele said. "First a finger twitches, or a toe. The flutter of an eyelid. It took months before she was clean."
The platter was empty and their dinners arrived, grilled halibut steaks, pesto mashed potatoes, salads.
In spite of herself, Barbara had been drawn into the drama of Connie's grief, marriage, addiction. "Didn't you talk to her? You could see the pattern, the isolation, separation from her friends, the whole works."
"Early on it wouldn't have done any good. She was an addict," Adele said dryly.
"You ever try to reason with an addict?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Later, I tried, but she wouldn't have it. As the drugs left her system, the grief flooded back.
She was not yet done with grieving. It had been put on chemical hold. She was passive, silent, unquestioning, just accepted pain and guilt as her due. And she would not hear a word about Jay. He had been trying to help, she insisted. She had needed him, and he needed her."
She snorted. "She said he understood what she was going through because his first wife had abandoned him and deprived him of all visitation rights to his two children.
They were dead to him, just as much as her child was dead to her. She had the impression that the daughter was a hopeless psychotic locked up in a state institution, and the son had turned to a gay lifestyle and had cut all ties to both parents. I asked if Jay had told her that and she didn't know. It was what she believed. I asked if she'd like to meet her stepchildren."
Chapter 10
Adele had to persuade Connie. Although at first she shrank from the idea of meeting anyone at all, much less someone who might be ill, she was too apathetic to offer strenuous resistance to Adele s determination to make the meeting happen. Stephanie and Reggie were harder to convince, she said.
Barbara stopped her. "Who's Reggie?"
Adele laughed, a short almost barking kind of laughter as much in derision as mirth.
"She's an unpublished writer with a folder full of rejection slips to prove it. She's about thirty-one, thirty-two, and she's been with Eve and Stephanie for nearly six years. The first companion for Eve who would stay. At first it was a job, no more than that. Kept a close eye on Eve when Stephanie was at the shop. Anyway, Reggie had written a short story in a writing class at the U of O, and the teacher thought it was a mess. I read it. A mess. She graduated, got a job, but kept thinking of the story and came around to agreeing with the teacher. She had tried to cram too much into too small a space. It was novel material. A fantasy novel full of weird creatures and other worlds. Lots of magic. She's been working on it for four years now, and it's grown again. She's thinking trilogy. So, even if the pay is very low, she has a room of her own, two now that Eric's gone, a lot of time off, nothing much to do except think and plot when she's earning her pay. Ideal situation for her."
Adele smiled, then said, "But a funny thing happened over the years. Reggie has become a big sister. She's a big girl, good-natured and a great sister. She's as protective of Eve as Stephanie and Eric. They go bike riding, walk to the university library, bike to the public library and through their neighborhood. They made a garden together and tend it. Cook together. They even bicker a little. A wonderful big sister. And she was really opposed to having Connie butt in."
She looked out the window, remembering that scene. "What on earth made you think I'd agree to having Jay's new wife come here?" Stephanie had demanded.
"What does she want from us?" Reggie had said.
"She should meet her stepchildren."
"She didn't set any speed records getting around to it," Reggie muttered.
Adele told them a little about
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