Read Online The Night Singers by Valerie Miner - Free Book Online

her blue cotton dress to dispel her irritation. (Brandon had always loved this dress, said it brought out the blue in her eyes and made her red hair even brighter. Of course she knew he was just talking through his love. Her husband was not a fashion-conscious man. Talking through my love , is how Brandon responded when she deflected any of his compliments.)
    The sergeant knew she was coming today. He’d helped her find Frau Muller’s gast haus via email. Perhaps he thought it had taken her too long to get here. Just about three years. As long as she didn’t come, she could still pretend in some small part of her that Brandon was alive. Of course they’d sent the body back home and they’d had a proper closed casket funeral, with a much larger flag. Thus it was possible they had misidentified the accident victim. She felt that visiting the site of the crash would make everything final somehow. So she had been postponing.
    â€œClosure,” her therapist recommended. Her brother had advised, “You should get back into circulation while you’re still young and pretty.” She didn’t want closure or circulation. She wanted Brandon and their adventurous life and their two beautiful children. From behind, she heard the young woman release a long sigh. Apparently there was even more waiting once you registered at the flaggy window.
    Naturally you remember when you hear something like this. Jennifer was in the middle of one of her favourite biology lessons—about how fish keep track of each other swimming in schools. “The Sense of Distant Touch”—and the kids were marvelling that the fish swam in synchronisation, without the aid of sight or sound.
    â€œI wish you were that well-behaved,” she teased. “Maybe what you need is a school of fish rather than an elementary school?”
    Marlene, in the third row, made a guppy face.
    Next to her, Arthur raised and lowered his elbows as if they were gills.
    Then Mr Thompson was knocking on the glass door. Something told her to ignore him. Ignore the principal, not usually a good idea. The children were all laughing and learning. You’d think that would be enough for him. But she saw his official face through the glass. Maybe Tommy Lacey’s mother had been picked up again. Or maybe Taylor had forgotten to report to the school nurse for her insulin shot that morning. Whatever it was, she did wish Mr Thompson would disappear—at least until she finished this fascinating lesson on the sense of distant touch.
    Her hands went cold from Mr Thompson’s persistent knocking.
    She had barely gripped the doorknob when she noticed Eileen Kaysen behind him.
    â€œYou’ll want to step out of class, Ms Petrie. Mrs Kaysen can take over your lesson for you.”
    She nodded cordially to Eileen, a competent teacher, a mentor, in fact.
    Her older friend smiled wanly.
    â€œPerhaps I could just finish this lesson on the sense of distant touch?” she asked.
    â€œThe what?” Eileen asked.
    She knew Eileen wouldn’t be able to handle it. Basically she was language arts. And while those with science majors could substitute in English classes, the language arts people were hopeless at biology and chemistry and physics.
    Mr Thompson actually took her arm. “Ms Petrie, there’s bad news.”
    She knew then.
    Knew it was Brandon.
    That he had died.
    Somehow on his safe base in Germany.
    She didn’t scream or cry. She nodded and followed him to his sterile little office. He introduced her to a soldier, who gave her the news and expressed formal condolences.
    After the soldier departed, Mr Thompson invited her to sit.
    He chatted with her across his large mahogany desk.
    She kept staring at a photo of the Thompson kids, four of them at the beach. Probably taken five years before. Cute kids. One of his daughters had the same name as Jennifer’s daughter—Amelia. Her own Amelia hadn’t been born