Read Online The Devil's Garden by Richard Montanari - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard Montanari
Ads: Link
four of the prettiest blue eyes in the world? Sometimes the magic was too strong to resist.
“Okay,” Abby said. “But just one each. And you can’t eat them until after dinner tonight. Okay?”
“Okay,” in tandem. They took off for the candy aisle. A minute later they returned. Emily carried the goods. She put them in the cart. There were three Peppermint Patties.
Again with the three , Abby thought.
“Sweetie, I said one each,” Abby said. She picked up one of the candy bars. “Did you bring this one for me?”
No answer.
“Okay, let’s get one more,” Abby said. “One for Daddy. Then we’ll have enough for all of us.”
It seemed like this was getting to be a standard routine and speech. It wasn’t like the girls were leaving out Michael in the equation. Abby had watched them interact with other kids many times. They were always generous with whatever they had to share. This was an early lesson from both her and Michael.
On the other hand, the girls were only four. She couldn’t expect them to be math wizards yet.
T HE E DEN F ALLS F REE L IBRARY was a small, ivy-laced brick building near the river, a Mid-Hudson design that also was home to the Crane County Community Theater.
Despite the fact that the girls were getting somewhat proficient at the computer, Abby was scared to death of leaving them alone online. So, at least once a week, time permitting, she took them to an honest-to-God, brick-and-mortar library. She had spent a great deal of time at the Hyde Park Library as a girl, and she would not deny the experience to the girls. There was something about the feel and smell and heft of books that no computer monitor could supply. Neither Charlotte nor Emily ever wanted to go. An hour later, neither wanted to leave.
As the girls settled into the children’s section, Abby heard an EMS siren approaching the library. As a trained RN, it caught her attention. It had always been so. From the time she was a child, she had been expected to go to medical school, to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a surgeon. Dr Charles Reed knew his son Wallace did not have the discipline or temperament for heart surgery, or even the rigors of residency, but felt his only daughter did.
Abby had gotten as far as her freshman year in pre-med at Columbia when, one night, on an icy sidewalk in the East Village, she slipped and broke her wrist. While being treated in the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, she watched the ER nurses in action, and knew that this was what she wanted to do, to work the front lines of medical care. Part of her had to admit that she knew it would get under her father’s skin, but when she switched over to the Columbia School of Nursing, she knew she had made the right decision. It took Charles Reed most of the ensuing thirteen or so years to get over it, if he ever did.
As the EMS ambulance passed the library, Abby flashed on the night, five years earlier, when she met Michael.
She had been on for almost twelve hours that day. The ER wasn’t busier than usual – that night there had been only one gunshot victim, along with a handful of domestics, including one that had ended in the husband, a fifty-nine-year old man who apparently had received a Westinghouse steam iron to the side of his head for saying to his wife, as a prelude to sex: “Yo, fatso, get with it.”
At midnight an EMS arrived at the door. As they wheeled in the unconscious patient, the paramedic looked into Abby’s eyes, his post 9/11 thousand-yard stare in place.
“Bomb,” the paramedic said softly.
All kinds of things raced through Abby’s mind. All of it terrifying. Her first thought was that the city had been attacked again, and this was just the first of the victims. She wondered how bad it was going to get. As the other two nurses on duty prepped a room, Abby stepped into the waiting room. She flipped the television channel to CNN. Two guys yelling at each other about the mortgage
“Okay,” Abby said. “But just one each. And you can’t eat them until after dinner tonight. Okay?”
“Okay,” in tandem. They took off for the candy aisle. A minute later they returned. Emily carried the goods. She put them in the cart. There were three Peppermint Patties.
Again with the three , Abby thought.
“Sweetie, I said one each,” Abby said. She picked up one of the candy bars. “Did you bring this one for me?”
No answer.
“Okay, let’s get one more,” Abby said. “One for Daddy. Then we’ll have enough for all of us.”
It seemed like this was getting to be a standard routine and speech. It wasn’t like the girls were leaving out Michael in the equation. Abby had watched them interact with other kids many times. They were always generous with whatever they had to share. This was an early lesson from both her and Michael.
On the other hand, the girls were only four. She couldn’t expect them to be math wizards yet.
T HE E DEN F ALLS F REE L IBRARY was a small, ivy-laced brick building near the river, a Mid-Hudson design that also was home to the Crane County Community Theater.
Despite the fact that the girls were getting somewhat proficient at the computer, Abby was scared to death of leaving them alone online. So, at least once a week, time permitting, she took them to an honest-to-God, brick-and-mortar library. She had spent a great deal of time at the Hyde Park Library as a girl, and she would not deny the experience to the girls. There was something about the feel and smell and heft of books that no computer monitor could supply. Neither Charlotte nor Emily ever wanted to go. An hour later, neither wanted to leave.
As the girls settled into the children’s section, Abby heard an EMS siren approaching the library. As a trained RN, it caught her attention. It had always been so. From the time she was a child, she had been expected to go to medical school, to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a surgeon. Dr Charles Reed knew his son Wallace did not have the discipline or temperament for heart surgery, or even the rigors of residency, but felt his only daughter did.
Abby had gotten as far as her freshman year in pre-med at Columbia when, one night, on an icy sidewalk in the East Village, she slipped and broke her wrist. While being treated in the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, she watched the ER nurses in action, and knew that this was what she wanted to do, to work the front lines of medical care. Part of her had to admit that she knew it would get under her father’s skin, but when she switched over to the Columbia School of Nursing, she knew she had made the right decision. It took Charles Reed most of the ensuing thirteen or so years to get over it, if he ever did.
As the EMS ambulance passed the library, Abby flashed on the night, five years earlier, when she met Michael.
She had been on for almost twelve hours that day. The ER wasn’t busier than usual – that night there had been only one gunshot victim, along with a handful of domestics, including one that had ended in the husband, a fifty-nine-year old man who apparently had received a Westinghouse steam iron to the side of his head for saying to his wife, as a prelude to sex: “Yo, fatso, get with it.”
At midnight an EMS arrived at the door. As they wheeled in the unconscious patient, the paramedic looked into Abby’s eyes, his post 9/11 thousand-yard stare in place.
“Bomb,” the paramedic said softly.
All kinds of things raced through Abby’s mind. All of it terrifying. Her first thought was that the city had been attacked again, and this was just the first of the victims. She wondered how bad it was going to get. As the other two nurses on duty prepped a room, Abby stepped into the waiting room. She flipped the television channel to CNN. Two guys yelling at each other about the mortgage
Similar Books
