Blessings by Belva Plain

Author:Belva Plain [Plain, Belva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780440206521
Amazon: 0440206529
Barnesnoble: 0440206529
Goodreads: 16739
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1989-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VII

With arms and legs gone rubbery, bracing herself with her left hand on the wall, Jennie unlatched the door. Light from the living room’s lamps fanned out upon a tall young girl. Hair, Jennie saw first. Masses of splendid, undulating, russet, shining hair. Copper. Red. Red hair.

She slumped against the wall. Stared. Put her hand flat on her chest where her heart knocked, and knocked, and might suddenly stop altogether.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said softly. “I’m sorry… . Are you going to faint?”

Jennie straightened up. For a fraction of an instant, outside of herself, she saw herself having a dream, a nightmare from which she would awaken in gratitude for daylight and reality. And then in the next instant, wrenched back into herself, she saw that this was reality:

that the girl was alive and real and poised to come through the doorway. She moved aside, her rubbery legs hardly holding her up.

“Come in,” she whispered.

They stood in the center of the room facing each other, six or seven feet apart. There was no feeling in Jennie, suddenly no feeling except a frightful awareness that she was numb. Shreds of thought blew like leaves across vacant ground: What am I supposed to do, to feel? I’m numb, I’m not able to do or feel, don’t you see? And, anyway, this may be a mistake. Yes, of course it’s a mistake. Yes.

But then there’s the hair. How many people have hair like that? Now look into her face. Look into the stranger’s face.

“You’re thinking you’re not sure who I am. But I’m in the right place. I’m Jill. Victoria Jill. They’ve told you about me.”

“Yes,” Jennie said, her voice making no sound, so that she had to repeat, “Yes, they have.”

They were still standing apart, at almost half the distance of the little room.

“You need to sit down,” the girl said. “You’re shaking.”

They moved to the chairs that flanked the sofa. Now they were only four feet apart.

She stares at me, Jennie thought. Her gaze moves from my stocking feet to my face and stops there. She wants to meet my eyes, but I have seen a glisten start in hers, and I cannot cope with, I am not ready for, tears, and I have to turn away.

Still, we have not touched each other, not even grazed hands. If this were a movie, we would be hugging and crying, but I am still empty. She looks away toward the window, which is black except for a slender oblong of light where a curtain across the street has fallen open. She looks toward the light. Her white silk shirt is low at the neck, so that I see the muscles of her throat contract as she swallows hard. Her face is narrow, thin, and lightly, delicately freckled over the nose, which is small but beaky, not like mine, nor like his. Her eyes are dark with heavy lashes, and the whites are so clear as to be almost blue. Piece by piece, still only half believing, I pick her apart.

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