April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier

Author:Beatrice Mosionier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, book
ISBN: 9781553792703
Publisher: Portage & Main Press
Published: 2010-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

I watched her plane taxi down the runway and gather speed, until its wheels no longer touched the ground. I watched until I could see it no more. Suddenly, I felt so empty. So alone. Funny I should have felt that way when Bob was right there beside me. On the drive back home, he was as preoccupied with his thoughts as I was with mine so we didn’t say much.

Sunday dinner that evening, was eaten in silence and not even Bob and his mother made any conversation. The atmosphere reinforced my feelings of loneliness. As usual, Bob and his mother retired to his office to plan the coming week’s business strategy. I went upstairs to our room. I was restless and didn’t know why, I turned the television set on but there were no programs which interested me. I left it on just for the sound of voices. I looked at a book, then another. That was no good either. It wasn’t the first time I had felt this way but it was the worst. This bored restlessness which usually came after big parties or large gatherings. And now, Cheryl was gone. She was the one person with whom I felt completely relaxed and comfortable. Maybe if I had something of my own to do, something which involved…what? Useless, that’s what I was. Bob had his business. Cheryl had her great cause. I had nothing. I had everything I ever wanted, yet I had nothing. Bob’s mother and, therefore, I were on many charitable organizations but none of them grabbed my heart or loyalty. Bob and I had our group of friends but I felt I had access to them only as long as Bob was with me. Of course, I did find our own age group much more interesting than the older ladies with whom Mother Radcliff surrounded herself.

Cheryl and I wrote monthly letters to each other but the chasm between us had widened and there was less to say in our letters. I found that I was writing about Heather Langdon who had joined our crowd. I told Cheryl that I wanted to be more like Heather because she so enjoyed living. Then I scratched that part out and rewrote that Heather was a lot like Cheryl in that she lived by her own approval, not that of others. Just like Cheryl.

I guess Cheryl was having the same problem because in her letters, she dwelled on her ongoing search for our parents. Where I had spent a month of weekends and quit, she wouldn’t. I worried. Then in May, her letter said that she had finally given up. I was relieved. I didn’t know what she would have done if she had found our parents. I hadn’t even wanted to think about that possibility. Now that she had ended her search, I no longer worried about how shocked and disillusioned she would have been. My conclusion about alcoholism was that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

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