The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly: a Novel by Katherine A. Sherbrooke

Author:Katherine A. Sherbrooke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The call came at 3:45 in the morning. Aster hadn’t slept. For the last four hours, she’d listened to the night sounds around the house, waiting for Benny and Fernando’s return. She clung to every distant bark of a dog or whoosh of air against the windows as a hopeful precursor to the rumble of Fernando’s car, the happy noises of the couple banging through the front door, back home, safe. Each time, as the gust of wind abated and the driveway remained empty, she told herself that Benny was simply at Fernando’s apartment. Of course they would stay there for the night. They had made up, and the worst that would come of it would be the challenge of sneaking Benny out in the morning, and the awful day on set he would suffer while nursing a hangover. But she never managed to hold onto the invented relief for long, instead returning each time to her vigil of listening and waiting and worrying.

When the trill of the phone shattered the silence, Aster snatched the receiver off its cradle to stop the noise but couldn’t bring herself to raise the cold plastic to her ear. She wasn’t ready. She wanted the silence back. If she could just go on waiting until the sun came up, it would erase the dark dread in her heart. The warmth of her life would return, everyone would be fine, everything could be fixed.

“Aster? Are you there?” The caller’s voice was muffled.

Reluctantly she raised the receiver.

“I’m here.”

“It’s Sam. There’s been a terrible accident.”

Aster began to shake uncontrollably. Please no. Please say he’ll be all right.

“Christopher’s dead.”

She wanted to throw the phone across the room, away from her, but she couldn’t move. Her breath escaped her body entirely, her lungs no longer functioning. She mouthed the air for oxygen. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

“Listen, the press is going to swarm your house tomorrow. They’ll want a glimpse of you and the baby. There will be no talk of divorce, all right? You’re a grieving widow now.”

A widow? What about Fernando? What was he? His life as he knew it had just ended too—crumpled, destroyed.

“Aster? Are you hearing me?”

Aster hung up the phone and fell to her knees beside the couch. Sobs erupted from her, animallike sounds that frightened her. Her head swarmed with visions of Fernando and Benny holding hands, whispering cheek to cheek, Benny proudly donning one of Fernando’s suits and mimicking Aster’s runway walks, Fernando beaming as he read out loud the review of Benny’s performance in Moonlight Sonata, the way they looked at each other with so much love.

He was gone. It was all gone.

The whole world would hear the news by daybreak, the grim details crackling over the radio—collective gasps spreading across factory floors, department store makeup counters, college campuses, and rural sewing circles. But there was one person who couldn’t learn of it that way. Aster had to be the one to tell Fernando.

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