The Pact by Jodi Picoult

Author:Jodi Picoult [Picoult, Jodi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Psychological, Azizex666, Fiction
ISBN: 0340838035
Google: WvAOwhJBspwC
Amazon: B001KDQ4KQ
Goodreads: 7170278
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 1998-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

“Hi,” Gus said breathlessly, sliding into the booth. She smiled at Michael, who was flicking the laminated menu with his thumbnail. “How is he today?”

“He's okay,” Michael said. “Looking forward to seeing you, I think.”

“Is he still sick?” Gus asked. “Last week he had that horrible cough.”

“It's much better,” Michael assured her. “He got some Robitussin from the commissary.” Gus settled her napkin on her lap, a thrill running through her chest and shoulders at the sight of him, like a schoolgirl with a crush. She had known Michael for twenty years, but was only beginning to really see him, as if this situation had not only changed her perception of her world, but also the people who inhabited it. How had she never noticed that Michael's voice could soothe so easily? That his hands seemed strong, his eyes kind? That he listened to her as if she were the only person in the room?

Gus was fully, guiltily aware of the fact that the conversation she was having with this man was the very conversation she should have been having with her husband. James still refused to talk about his son, as if Chris's name and the accusations against him were a great black bat, which once freed would spread its wings and shriek and refuse to go back from where it had come. She had begun to eagerly look forward to these weekly lunches, arranged around the visiting hours of the Grafton jail, because she'd have someone to speak to.

That it was Michael was sometimes odd. Since his wife had been Gus's best friend for-well, nearly forever-they knew a great deal about each other, secondhand. There were things that Melanie had told Gus about Michael, and things Melanie had told Michael about Gus. It made them uncomfortably intimate, brimming with knowledge of each other they otherwise should not have had.

“You look very nice today,” Michael said.

“Me?” Gus laughed. “Well, thank you. So do you.” She meant it. Michael's flannel shirts and faded jeans, chosen because of his messy profession, made Gus think of soft, overstuffed words, like comfort and nestle and snug.

“You dress up for your visits, don't you?”

“I suppose I do,” Gus said. She glanced down at her printed dress, and smiled. “I wonder who I'm trying to impress.”

“Chris,” Michael answered for her. “It's how you want him to remember you, in between.”

“And how would you know that?” Gus teased.

“Because I do the same thing when I go to Emily's grave,” he said. “Jacket and tie-can you imagine me in that?-just in case she's looking.”

Stricken, Gus lifted her face. “Oh, Michael,” she said. “I forget sometimes that this is so much worse for you.”

“I don't know,” Michael said. “At least it's over for me. For you, it's just beginning.” Gus ran her finger along the edge of her saucer. “How come I remember the two of them catching frogs and playing tag, like it was yesterday?”

“Because it was,” Michael answered quietly. “It wasn't all that long ago.” He glanced around the little deli.

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