Pokrewne

Start
Bold, Emily Zwei Seelen eine etwas andere Weihnachtsges
Bold, Emily Windham 02 Verborgene Traenen
Becca Van Saving Emily [Siren Menage Ever
Bronte Jane Emily Wichrowe wz calosc
Black Mahogany Emily Carrington
Cecilia Gray [The Gentlemen N A Dangerous Expectation (epub)
Beyond the Sea Emily Goodwin
Amelia Gray Threats (v5.0) (epub)
C M Gray The Flight of the Griffin (epub
Donovan Gray Dude, Where's My Stethoscope

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.CommutersA NovelEmily Gray TedroweTo my parentsContentsPart IOneWinnieTwoRachelThreeAveryFourWinnieFiveRachelSixAverySevenWinnieEightRachelNineAveryPart IITenWinnieElevenRachelTwelveAveryThirteenWinnieFourteenRachelFifteenAverySixteenWinnieSeventeenRachelEighteenAveryPart IIINineteenWinnieTwentyRachelTwenty-OneAveryTwenty-TwoWinnieTwenty-ThreeRachelTwenty-FourAveryTwenty-FiveRachelTwenty-SixAveryTwenty-SevenWinnieAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorCreditsCopyrightAbout the PublisherPart IOneWINNIEIt was a small-town June wedding, and the bride was seventy-eight.From the church balcony where she sat alone, Winnie could see how it all looked, without her: rows and rows of dark wood pews, the flutter and ripple of the guests who filled them, twin thumb-sized bursts of yellow and white gladiolas set before the altar.She was supposed to be downstairs, in a small lounge off the vestibule; it was the place young children were rushed to when their fussing threatened to interrupt the service.She should have been admiring herself in the mirror, in this tea-length wedding gown of cream silk; she should have been conserving energy.But her face was as fixed as it would ever be, and she couldn’t rest anymore.It seemed there was something she needed to know, something she could only discover from this vantage point, so Winifred Easton McClelland—soon to be Trevis—had slowly climbed the stone stairs and found her way to a front-row seat, above the place where the ceremony was about to begin.Sixty years ago, she had stood in the foyer of this same church, in an itchy, off-the-rack suit.It was a modest Wednesday morning wedding; it matched everything about marrying steady, quiet, reliable George, her first husband.Winnie’s father had been uncharacteristically distant and preoccupied, on that windy November day, as they waited together for their musical cue.But he had a lot on his mind, as Hartfield’s station manager.Those trains don’t run themselves, he used to say.Or was he worried about what this was costing him? She had tried to find something they could talk about, together in the chilly hall.“You don’t have to,” her father had said abruptly, staring at a spot above her head.“A wife doesn’t, I mean.Every night.Even if he wants to.”Well.Winnie now felt a slow flush of heat rise within her, right there in the First Presbyterian balcony.No one was around to give her such advice now, nor did she need it.She thought of Jerry Trevis, her Jerry, and the way he would touch her—the anticipation was part of the pleasure.She knew enough from their few evenings alone together, to guess how their bodies would join and respond to each other: with a lively ease, with recognition.No, she wasn’t at all the same bride that she had been, on the day her father gave his wedding-night counsel.Is that why she was sitting all the way up here, alone? Winnie wondered what she could discover, given a clear line of sight and a moment’s reflection.What was different, what had changed, in the years between that first wedding and today.The shoes, for one thing—or her ability to choose them.Winnie raised one foot and sighed, studying the compromise heel, which was a good inch and a half lower than that impossibly flimsy pair in which she had teetered for twenty minutes at Nordstrom, even as she knew what her daughter would make her buy instead: something expensive, subdued, sturdy.Old-lady shoes.On my wedding day.Nor did she have illusions about the sentimentality of this occasion, those unnecessary details that probably most of the guests—and some from her own family, even—would see as trivial or self-indulgent.Winnie didn’t need all this: the ring, the dress (but oh, she loved how she looked in this dress), the lavish reception to come.She knew how it looked.Winnie’s social circle was composed mostly of other long-time widows, and there was a history of light jokes about the phenomenon of two older people coming together late in life.She knew all the usual arrangements, all the wink-and-nudge euphemisms—those “companions” or “special friends.” Why bother with anything formal, anything official?But when a man like Jerry Trevis said he wanted to get married, he meant married.He hadn’t moved to tiny Hartfield from Chicago for anything else.And there was this; Winnie ran her palm across the smooth surface of her dress.The truth was, she wanted this day too—the pomp and show of it, the public display.She had married once because it was a good match, mostly for her parents and his; that was how things were done, and she hadn’t argued with it.But now she found herself about to do something that felt like the first thing she’d ever done on her own.And maybe that called for a lot of witnesses, the gratuitous flowers, a tiered and too-sweet cake.She was marrying a man for the delicious and wicked and simple reason that she wanted to.Not that everyone saw it that way.Earlier in the day, Winnie and Jerry had posed together for a photograph on the sloping lawn in front of the church, next to the welcome signboard where their own names were spelled out in white plastic letters, below today’s date.(Above that, for the morning wedding, another couple’s names were listed, which only slightly ruined the effect.) For the occasion, Winnie had agreed to be interviewed by a reporter from the local paper—she often was, a frequent obligation, part of her role as the daughter of what many considered to be the town’s founder, the man who had linked little Hartfield to New York City.Dutifully, she gave her quotes when asked, and had learned not to argue with young people’s fascination with the past—especially those awful railroad aficionados.Relentless.But she had hoped for more, this time.She wanted to explain what it was like, meeting Jerry just three months ago.How she had never expected to be in love again, and what it took to upend your placid and settled life: the one you led with dignity, the one people expected of you.“At times, what I feel is closer to regret than anything else,” Winnie had told the reporter.“Maybe that’s inevitable.After all, most of my life will have been spent without Jerry, and getting married now keeps bringing that to mind.So then all this happiness actually—”“Yes,” the polite reporter said, nodding.Her pen hovered over the pad, unmoving.“So interesting.Can you tell me exactly how old Mr.Trevis is? And confirm your birth date?”And so, little by little, there on the soft church lawn, Winnie discovered the reporter’s agenda: a fluff piece, a throwaway.Something to warm the heart.She and Jerry were meant to be a symbol—of hope springing eternal, and all that.How could it be otherwise? She and Jerry couldn’t be themselves; they had to be much bigger than that.They were the human interest [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]