Promises by Belva Plain

Author:Belva Plain [Plain, Belva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780307789464
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-08T13:00:00+00:00

Yet patience wavered. Depending upon degrees of fatigue or the vagaries of the weather, it came and went. So one day Nina went to Ernie and asked whether she might borrow his car. “Tuesday, maybe?”

“Well, you’ve been working like a beaver, so I don’t know why not. Where are you going?”

“Just up to Westchester. I won’t be long and don’t worry about your new car. I won’t get a scratch on it.”

She had looked up the address in the telephone book and had already consulted a township map. It was in the back country on Plum Tree Road. And as she drove up past the city limits into the newly green suburbs, she asked herself whether it was morbid curiosity or masochism that was urging her on toward Keith’s house. Undoubtedly, whatever the reason, it was a foolish one because the very sight of that house was sure to hurt her to the quick. Nevertheless, she had to see it.

The area was beautiful. Large, tasteful houses, none of them ostentatious or too new, lay among fields, slight hills, and luxuriant shrubberies. Here was nature educated and well brought up, a setting absolutely right for Keith.

His house, too, was what she had imagined, a low white country house at the top of a long, sloping lawn. Here and there were specimen trees just beginning to leaf: an enormous beech that must be close to a century old, a cluster of cedars and English hollies. She parked the car not too close to the driveway—for in a neighborhood like this one they were wary of strangers—yet close enough to get the feel that she needed. There were three windows on either side of the central doorway. One of them on the second floor must be in Keith’s room. Or perhaps he slept at the back of the house? And she thought of him going in and out at that door, up and down that driveway, walking across that grass.

Then the front door opened. Three shapes emerged, a woman followed by two small children. They were too far off to be seen with any clarity, but straining her eyes, she was able to discern their crouching, the gleam of a shovel, and a thin wand, a stick, that stood by itself when they drew away from it. They had planted a sapling.

A touching sight, one would think, a mother and children planting a tree. And yet Nina tasted acid on her tongue. Hanging on, sauntering out into the sunshine, taking her own good time as it suited her, this—this woman whom her husband no longer loved, if he ever had loved her. Just hanging on!

Why don’t you grow up and face reality? she raged. When a mistake has been made, for God’s sake acknowledge it and let go! He doesn’t want you anymore, you fool, you.

She wanted to scream it aloud, wanted to walk up and shout it into the woman’s face. Instead she put the car into gear and, vastly depressed, turned back to the city.

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