Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts;

Author:Elizabeth Letts; [Letts, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2019-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

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IT TOOK MAUD MORE than a year to fully recover, but finally she was able to care for the household and the boys again, and she started to feel like herself. The memory of the first day home, when the boys had seemed like strangers, had long since faded, and they no longer remembered that she had ever been absent. But one thing between herself and Frank had permanently changed. Each night Maud lay alone, curled up on the far side of the mattress when Frank crawled into bed. She wanted more than anything to roll toward him, to bury her face in his chest and allow him to wrap her in his embrace, but her doctor had given her firm instructions: she must not conceive another child. The sponge in the lacquer box was not enough protection. Another parturition would put her life in immediate peril.

Frank had agreed to the restriction. He treated her with the utmost kindness and concern, but Maud no longer felt like herself. She was a dainty piece of china, a teapot with a mended spout. She had no doubt of his love for her, but she longed constantly for his embrace, and treated him coldly for fear that she would have a moment of weakness.

One night, Frank rolled toward her in the dark and placed his chin on her shoulder. She could feel the scratch of his moustache through her gown.

“Maudie, darling?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I feel like I’m suffocating here in New York. So much competition. So many people fighting for the same dime. It sounds like out in Dakota, a man can really be somebody. What if we head out there? Take our chances? Try to make our fortune?”

Maud felt a slight stirring somewhere deep inside her, like the wings of a baby bird cupped in her hands.

“I know you miss Julia and T.C.,” Frank continued. “Tell me, darling, what do you think?”

Maud could have ticked off a million reasons why it was a bad idea, such an uncertain venture, with the children so young. But they had left the theater company to keep Maud well, and look what had happened: she had gotten sick. Safety, certainty—whose choices in life gave them that kind of guarantee?

“Well, all right then,” Frank said, mistaking her silence for unwillingness.

Maud lay her head against his chest and felt his heart thumping in her ear—Frank, so good, so kind, so generous, so bighearted. He had been such a hollow man of late. Maud was stronger now. Why shouldn’t they adventure once again?

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