Random Winds by Belva Plain

Author:Belva Plain [Plain, Belva]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780307575067
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1980-01-04T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Martin moved his chair back from the table. “Well, this was a great dinner. Had enough?” he asked Claire.

The devastated Sunday roast stood in its cooling gravy on the sideboard with the peas, the sweet potatoes, the homemade rye rolls and the apple pudding. He ate too much, as his father had before him. He resolved to watch it.

“I’m stuffed,” Claire said. “You’re a better cook than our maid, Aunt Hazel. You can cook better than any maid we ever had.”

Hazel smiled. “If you still want to take Enoch to the park, Claire, you’d better start. It gets dark and cold early.”

“I want to go to the park,” Enoch said at once.

“I’m ready. I’ll just get my pea jacket.”

“All the buttons are off it,” Martin observed.

“Not all, only three. How come you noticed? Mother’s always noticing, but I didn’t think you would.”

“You think I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other?”

“Give them to me. I’ll sew them on,” Hazel offered.

The three stood watching while she sewed the buttons. Her soft hair kept falling over her forehead. Whenever she pushed it back, she looked up at them and smiled.

“You’re really so nice,” Claire told her. “You know, my friend Alice’s parents got divorced, and her father’s new wife is nasty and Alice hates her, but I certainly don’t hate you.”

“That’s too bad,” Hazel said. “About Alice, I mean. I’m glad you don’t hate me, though.”

“I was supposed to wear my good coat today. It’s rose-colored, sort of, and has a gray fur collar. Mother made me buy it, but I don’t like it.”

“Your mother has beautiful taste,” Martin said. “You can learn something from her.”

“I know, but I’m not interested in things like that—clothes and keeping my room neat and stuff. I’m just not interested.”

“There. That’s done,” Hazel said. She bit the thread off between her teeth. “Now you look better. I’ll get Enoch’s snowsuit on. Be sure to hold his hand very tightly; he can slip loose before you know it.”

“You can trust me,” Claire assured her.

“She likes coming here,” Hazel observed when they had gone. “I guess it’s fun for her to be with Enoch. Her own house must be very quiet, I suppose.”

“I suppose,” Martin answered.

“She really is an odd character, Martin. In a wonderful way, I mean. So—different.”

“That’s true.”

“Do you ever think you would like to see her mother?”

“Not particularly.”

Hazel wanted to talk about Jessie, to probe in dark places. But the truth was that, yes, he would have liked to have seen Jessie, to talk about Claire, to find for himself whether the sore had healed at all. However, Jessie did not want to see him.

“Well, I guess I’d better clean up the kitchen. You going to work?”

“Just for an hour before the Philharmonic comes on. I’ve a few patient-reports to check.”

He had fixed up a room for himself and his personal treasures: his desk, his books, records and the little radio on which he listened to the Sunday broadcast of the Philharmonic.

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