Read Online The Girls Are Missing by Caroline Crane - Free Book Online

that sudden motion wasn’t good for him.”
    Carl escorted Olivia downstairs for a glass of sherry while Joyce returned the baby to his crib.
    When she went to join them, Carl had poured drinks for the two women and was in the kitchen mixing one for himself. She could hear him opening a tray of ice cubes, spilling them like rocks into the plastic bin in the freezing compartment. Olivia sat across from her, gazing at the mantelpiece.
    The silence was nerve-wracking. Casting about for something to say, Joyce surprised herself by asking, “Have you heard from Daniella recently?”
    Olivia, her attention jerked from the mantel, stared at her suspiciously. They had never discussed Daniella before. Or much of anything. They had never, Joyce realized, even been alone together before.
    “I frequently hear from Daniella,” Olivia replied. “Why?”
    “I just wondered. We got a card from her at Christmas, but I don’t think Carl sent her one. He hardly ever talks about her. Sometimes I forget he even has a sister.”
    “She’s out in Arizona. That’s a fairly good distance.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “How often do you talk about your sister? I suppose you have a sister or brother.”
    “Two sisters and two brothers,” said Joyce, expecting then to be asked about her family.
    But Olivia did not care about her family. She rested her sherry glass on the arm of her chair and again studied the mantel.
    “Carl and Daniella used to be very close, when they were growing up. But it’s hardly appropriate to stay that attached to one another, do you think?”
    “It depends,” Joyce said. “It’s a different kind of closeness. I feel, with my brother Pat—well, he’s a good friend.” She excused herself, called the girls to set the table, and went out to the kitchen, where Carl was measuring vermouth into his glass.
    “What on earth are you doing?” she asked.
    “Mixing a drink. What’s the matter, can’t you talk to her?”
    “It’s not easy.” She opened the refrigerator and took out a bowl of chicken that was marinating in lime juice. “Everything I say, she argues with. Everything she says, it sounds as if she’s trying to pick a fight with me. “
    “Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
    She motioned him to keep his voice low, and began arranging the chicken on a broiling pan.
    “Well, that’s the way it seems. It just seems hostile, the way she talks to me.”
    He rattled his drink and tasted it. “I suppose it’s possible that you resent her, because she had me before you did.”
    “I certainly do not! After all, she’s your mother. I’m not in competition with her.”
    Or was she?
    Trying to ease over the argument, she said, “I don’t know, maybe I’m just moody. It must be the heat.”
    “It’s postpartum depression.”
    “Baloney. I don’t get that.”
    “Very experienced, aren’t you? Anyway, it’s more apt to happen with the second than the first, didn’t you know? Probably you miss something about your old life. That’s what it often is.”
    “I don’t miss anything.” She wondered if that was true.
    “You’re sure?”
    She remembered the summer mornings on the fringes of Greenwich Village, even in that cramped apartment … the lazy walks to buy a newspaper—yes, Larry had been around sometimes… the antique shops that were open on Sunday, where they could browse and dream … and sunning on the pier in the Hudson River. She tried to remember the soot, and the times Larry wasn’t there.
    “Of course not. I told you.”
    Gail drifted down the stairs, pale-faced and miserable. All through the meal she remained a silent tragic figure, so that this time it was fortunate that no one took the trouble to notice her.
    She was released after dinner when they moved into the sun porch with their coffee. Mary Ellen stayed with them, alternately listening to the grown-up talk and staring out of the window, her eyes glazed with boredom.
    Olivia stirred sugar into her coffee. “I hear you