Big Silence by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Author:Stuart M. Kaminsky [Kaminsky, Stuart M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-0025-2
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-12-14T19:44:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

THE SUN WAS CONSIDERING whether to come up or not when Lieberman got home. Parking was a little hard, but not hard enough to have to wrestle with the garage door. He found a spot about a block from the house, took it, and walked back. There was a smell of rain in the air and a strong breeze. Lieberman liked it this way.

He entered the dark house quietly. No one seemed to be up, probably wouldn’t be for at least three hours when the children had to be awakened for school. Lieberman’s plan was simple: Have some cereal, set the alarm, and go to sleep. He had a feeling that his insomnia demon was as tired as he was.

At first, things were just fine. He took off his shoes and left them in front of the hall closet. He didn’t want to open the closet door because of the squeal the door would make. He walked to the kitchen, turned on the light, and closed the door.

Lieberman poured himself a bowl of something called Oat Clusters. Bess had told him to eat Cheerios. She had been reading and watching the news. They were good for his heart. Lieberman didn’t like Cheerios. They had compromised with the other oat cereal. He got a spoon and the milk and sat down to eat more quickly than Bess would have approved of.

And then the kitchen door opened.

His daughter, Lisa, stood in the open doorway in a blue trench coat over her pajamas. Her hair was disheveled.

“I was waiting for you,” she said, closing the door and sitting across from her father at the table while he continued to eat. “Marvin’s at the hotel. I heard you come in. Actually, I heard the refrigerator close. Abe, I have to talk.”

“Lisa,” he said, tilting the bowl to get at the last of the milk. “I’ve been up all night and I’ve got about two or three hours to try to sleep. You can talk, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to listen. Or, if I do, I can’t guarantee that I’ll absorb it or that anything I say will make a hell of a lot of sense. I suggest we talk tonight when I get back home or maybe for a while when I get up, before I have to go back to work.”

“Five minutes, Abe,” Lisa said, leaning forward. “You might be in another big hurry when you get up and I’ll be gone when you come home from work.”

There was definitely a plea in his daughter’s voice, a sound he was not accustomed to in Lisa who had, in the past, been critically silent, occasionally demanding, often angry. To hear something that might be more than a request from his daughter was more than the exhausted Lieberman could resist.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“I’m going back with Marvin this afternoon,” she said. “I love my children. I love my husband. I’m not a good mother. I talked to Todd. Actually, Bess talked to him.

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