Falling in Place by Ann Beattie

Author:Ann Beattie [Beattie, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Man-Woman Relationships, Man-Woman Relationships - Fiction, New York (N.Y.), General, Literary, Fiction, Domestic Fiction, New York (N.Y.) - Fiction
ISBN: 9780679731924
Google: KavGgUMoIO8C
Amazon: 0446314544
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

He walked up the stairs, trying to remember that he was in love. There was a fact, and an important one: He was in love. He was there because she said more in a glance than anyone else said in a touch, and a touch from her meant more than an embrace from anyone else. When you were in love, it was logical to go be with the person you loved. Only, he didn’t know where to begin. What he had to talk about seemed to have nothing to do with the world of love and everything to do with the world of hate, and that world had never been real when he was with Nina. If she was getting away, it was because he was letting her get away. She was inside the apartment. He knew that she would not have left for work yet. She would be having her little-girl breakfast of cereal and fruit, and brushing her hair, listening to the news on the radio, tidying up the room. She wasn’t mean in the morning. You could talk to her and she’d answer. The two times they had gone away together, he had been amazed at how cheerful she was in the morning. He tried to remember that it was morning now, that if he put his mind to it, he could stop his legs from shaking enough to climb the stairs, that at the top was Nina, that he could reach out and touch her and she would be there. He felt as crazy and foolish as an old drunk who finds his way home but can’t remember to climb the stairs, so he’s found in the morning and catches hell anyway. God—if he was really comical. If she meant that, really, and didn’t just say it to tease, because she was fond of him. If it was all explained in Passages: a simple answer. Nothing was simple. Not even loving Nina was simple. This was the only place he could imagine being, and already he felt that the place wasn’t there, that he wasn’t going to make it to the top of the stairs, and that if he did, he wouldn’t know where to begin. He would have to invent some logical explanation for what he was going to tell her, or maybe it was just because he was in a panic that he thought that. He realized that he was in a panic, and that gave him enough energy, returned enough breath to him, that he was able to continue walking up the stairs. He couldn’t believe what he had left behind, what he had just walked out on. He had thought at the time that he was doing the logical thing, that he was doing something out of self-preservation. There had been so much chaos: He had been afraid that he was losing his senses, going deaf. And only the summer before, the six of them, his mother, Brandt, John Joel, Louise, Mary and he, had been at the carnival.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.