Read Online The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald - Free Book Online Page B

wheels. Martha sensed that President Gardner would try as hard as he could to ignore him, but also that Henry was present to be looked over somehow.
    “So,” the president said. “I gather you wanted to see me.”
    “Yes,” Martha began. “I wanted to ask you—I want to ask you—”
    “Yes?”
    “Well, first, have you heard anything from Betty?”
    He paused a moment, as if trying to place the name. “Anything like what?” he asked finally.
    “Anything like if she’s coming back.”
    “Coming back,” Dr. Gardner repeated coldly. “Why would she be coming back?”
    Martha looked over at Henry. He had left his truck by the fireplace now and was using his hands to sweep new patterns into the plush of the carpet.
    “Look!” Henry said to Martha, and then he dove forward onto his hands, as if he was plunging into a snowdrift, and giggled with the sheer joy of falling forward.
    “What is he doing?” Dr. Gardner asked Martha drily.
    “You can ask him,” Martha said, but it was immediately evident that Dr. Gardner had no interest in asking him.
    “Tell Dr. Gardner what you’re doing, Henry,” Martha said.
    “Tell a joke!” Henry said proudly.
    “What does he mean?” Dr. Gardner asked, and Martha felt a momentary pang for Betty, having grown up with such a father.
    “He means he thinks it’s funny to do what he’s doing,” Martha explained.
    “Ah,” Dr. Gardner said.
    “Have you been in touch with her?” Martha asked. “Do you have an address for her? May I write to her?”
    “Have her address? Why?” he asked, and Martha regretted that she had asked him three questions at once.
    “Because I’d like to get in touch with her,” Martha said. “There’s something I need to ask her.”
    “She’s not coming back,” President Gardner said. “She’s not coming back, and I know you’ve heard from Irena Stahl that there is a family waiting for this boy.”
    “This boy” is your grandson, Martha thought but didn’t quite have the nerve to say.
    Henry, having temporarily tired of his carpet games, toddled over to the desk and picked up an empty ashtray. Carrying it in both hands, as if it held frankincense or myrrh, he zigzagged toward Martha, more than a little off balance, and handed it to her.
    “And what’s this?” she asked him, suddenly conscious of wanting to show off how adorable he was.
    “Sa plate,” he said.
    “And what’s on the plate?”
    “Sa cookie!”
    “A cookie? Mmm,” Martha said, pretending to take something from the plate. “Chocolate chip! My favorite! Why don’t you see if Dr. Gardner would care for one?”
    Henry turned toward the president and took three shipboard steps forward. “He wants a cookie?” he asked a bit uncertainly.
    “No, it’s ‘Do you want a cookie?’” Martha said, correcting him.
    “Do you want a cookie?” Henry asked in a perfect imitation.
    The president laughed, no doubt despite himself, and squinted down at Henry, not unkindly.
    “Why, thank you, young man,” he said, and, with a touching kind of purposefulness, he pretended to take a cookie and to pantomime eating it.
    “Cookies!” Henry squealed with delight and went back over to the president’s desk to load up his imaginary plate with more imaginary food.
    “There’s something Betty left with me,” Martha said pointedly. “She told me to take care of it. And I need to know what to do with it now.”
    Dr. Gardner followed both her glance and her meaning.
    “There shouldn’t be any confusion about that,” Dr. Gardner said.
    Martha looked toward the desk, where Henry had readied another plate of pretend cookies and was beginning his next gleeful transverse of the carpet.
    “Sir,” Martha finally said. “Did it occur to you that Henry might—that I might—”
    Never had Martha felt so betrayed by her emotions. Voice quavering, nose reddening, and, she knew, face flushing. Exactly the opposite of the stable, nonerratic, trustworthy person she needed, right