Twilight Whispers by Barbara Delinsky

Author:Barbara Delinsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Chapter 11

By the fall of 1952 the Whytes and Warrens had become comfortable residents of Dover. Six of their children attended the local schools, and Natalie and Lenore—not to mention the Morells and McNees—had become familiar faces in and around the community. If Jack and Gil’s faces weren’t as familiar, simply because they were on the go much of the time, their reputations took up the slack. Jack became known as one of the town’s most promising rising entrepreneurs, while Gil, whose legal and political expertise preceded him, was a shoo-in for the local seat in the State Legislature being vacated by the longtime, retiring representative.

Natalie kept herself busy with the children, as much to compensate for Jack’s absences—he’d been off and running since spring, when the novelty of the house had worn off—as to satisfy herself that her children would know their mother as she had never known her own. She was intimately involved in every one of their activities, a double challenge after December of that year, when she gave birth to a daughter, Anne. Though she hired a nurse to take care of the baby, more often than not as the spring of 1953 unfolded Anne was on Natalie’s own hip while she cheered at Nick’s Little League games, attended Mark’s school plays, and struggled with Jordan’s labored attempts to learn to read.

Moreover, she was nearly as involved with the Warren children as she was with her own, since so many of the youngsters’ activities overlapped. Lenore was usually present—her heart was in the right place—but when Peter urged his horse into a gallop, promptly tumbled off and broke his arm, she went to pieces, leaving Natalie and Cassie to comfort the boy and see that he had the medical attention he needed. And when Laura developed a sudden and severe stutter, it was Natalie who had the presence of mind to seek out a speech therapist. And when Ben’s teacher called to say that he was terrorizing the girls in the class, it was Natalie who sat him down for a long talk.

Lenore was in a perpetual state of nervousness. She worried about anything and everything, from Gil’s political stability to Deborah’s propensity for the croup to Ben’s refusal to drink milk. Where Natalie was happy enough to enjoy all she had at a particular moment, Lenore was obsessed with what she might not have in the future. She envisioned Gil being unseated in the next election or having a sudden downturn in his law practice. She lived in dire fear of a fire or hurricane that might destroy the Dover house and leave them with a major loss.

She worked herself into such a state that migraine headaches became a common occurrence, sending her to bed with the shades drawn, a warm cloth over the bridge of her nose and strict orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed. The children weathered her absences well. They had long since learned that either Cassie or Natalie could better

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