The Darlings by Cristina Alger

Author:Cristina Alger [Alger, Cristina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780670023271
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

THURSDAY, 11:16 A.M.

Quiet was Marion’s gift to Sol. She had been asleep when he crawled into bed beside her the night before—it must have been 2 or 3 a.m.—and she was asleep when he went back to work a few hours later.

Sol was sure she had been up for at least a few hours. But she was lingering upstairs, reading maybe or taking a long bath. Staying out of his hair, basically, so he could work. It was this sort of gesture, so subtle that any other person would have missed it entirely, that made him love her after thirty-six years. Not just a warm, familial love, but a deep, rare sort of love. Her body was a mass of lumps and veins, and her hair was like an overgrown shrub most of the time, no longer really worth tending. But still, Sol thought Marion was beautiful.

When he heard her softly padding around in the kitchen, he couldn’t wait to see her. Though they had been together since the previous evening, he hadn’t really been with her. The Morty situation had swallowed him whole.

He hoped she was making coffee. It was less acidic somehow when she made it. Sol made a mental note to thank her for driving last night and for the coffee, if there was any. He never remembered to thank her for coffee.

He found Marion in front of the open refrigerator, her spandexed body sticking out from behind the door.

He patted her on the rear. “Sol!” she exclaimed. “You scared me half to death. I thought you were working.”

“I am,” he said, feeling unusually affectionate. “But I wanted to say good morning.”

Marion’s chocolate-brown eyes softened as she smiled. The little crow’s feet that sprouted from their corners were so kindly, he thought. He couldn’t imagine why she kept threatening to erase them.

“Well, that’s nice of you,” she said, leaning in for a kiss. “I hope you got some sleep last night. What time did you get to bed?”

He smiled and wrapped her in a hug so that she couldn’t see his face. Marion could always tell when he was lying to her. “I’m fine,” he said. “I got a few hours. You know me. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“That’s what worries me!” she said and laughed a little. “You need to take care of yourself. You work too hard.”

“No such thing.”

She shot him an admonishing look. “I know,” he conceded. “I know.”

“I’m meeting Judith for spin class this morning,” Marion said, changing the subject. She closed the fridge. “We might go for a bite after, but everything’s probably closed.”

Usually, when Marion went “for a bite” she returned home with a shopping bag or two dangling from one arm. She was unable to walk through East Hampton’s main drag without buying something. She shopped with heightened abandon in East Hampton. Sol assumed this had something to do with feeling relaxed. She would come to her senses later in the day but by then, it was too late.

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