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The Qualities of Wood. Mary White Vensel
Читать онлайн.Название The Qualities of Wood
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007469505
Автор произведения Mary White Vensel
Жанр Зарубежные детективы
Издательство HarperCollins
MARY VENSEL WHITE
The Qualities of Wood
Copyright
Authonomy
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
THE QUALITIES OF WOOD. Copyright © Mary Vensel White. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mary Vensel White asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Source ISBN: 9780007523580
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007469505 Version: 2015-02-09
Dedication
For Jason, for everything
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Thanking
About the Author
About Authonomy
About the Publisher
1
In the small, congested airport, Vivian didn’t recognize her husband. Summertime. Outside, the sun beamed white on the runway and grassy fields. Inside, the terminal was stuffy and warm. Vivian passed a group of brightly-clothed summer travelers, this haze of blue, pink, yellow and green, and walked slowly along an eye-level, smudged window and into the crowded inlet beside the gate, all the while hunting for Nowell. Somehow, she walked right by.
She imagined the terminal was normally empty, the surrounding community being rural and unworldly. But it was the season of vacations: eastern hometowns, tropical beaches, exotic cities. Not everyone was headed to an abandoned house in the country, she thought. The travelers dispersed purposefully, trailing loved ones or heading solo toward the cars parked in rows at the front of the building. Vivian was pulled along with the crowd. Nowell was late. At first she felt irritated but quickly dismissed the feeling. It was a reunion, she reminded herself.
A large hand gripped her shoulder and she spun around.
‘Where are you going?’ Nowell’s deep voice. His dark eyes.
‘I couldn’t see you,’ she said. She reached up for him, grasped his shoulders as though to pull herself up. ‘I didn’t see you.’
On the way to the house, she soaked him in: the shadowed gash of his cheekbone, his ruddy lips. Nowell kept his hand on her thigh. His touch felt curiously foreign after their four-week separation, but it ignited something too.
The drive wasn’t long, the countryside a blur of sameness. Fields of indecisive green, hills falling short of remarkable. Here and there a white or brown-shingled house, some shadowed by barns. The predictable Midwest.
Nowell’s hand left her leg to steer the car onto a dirt driveway. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
Vivian peered through the windshield. The small, white house was set back from the road and elevated slightly, like a judge on his bench. The sun lit the house from behind. White with dark green trim, there were wide strips of paint missing altogether; these sections of bare wood gave the impression of something bursting its seams. Two narrow windows gazed at the newcomers and beneath them, a bluish shadow stretched, tongue-like, down the front steps and onto the lawn.
‘It looks stable,’ Vivian said.
He chuckled. The truck made a strange revving sound after he removed the key. ‘Just the timing,’ he told her.
Vivian nodded. She knew the truck was like the house, old and in disrepair. Nowell had traded in their Honda when he left the city. They gave up the lease on their apartment and he moved first to arrange things. For a month, Vivian stayed at her parents’ house, working at her job for a couple more paychecks. It was the longest they had ever been apart.
She hadn’t been particularly attached to their Honda, a blue hatchback with gray seats, but the truck was big and awkward. The worn seat belt was loose over her lap, leaving almost enough room for another person. Vivian’s feet grazed the floor. Like a child, she had only a limited view over the dash.
Nowell opened the passenger door and lifted her out of the truck. Vivian stood about five-four and her husband was over six feet. Everyone in her family seemed shorter than average, while his whole family was tall. At their wedding, the first few rows in church seemed like a tilted painting, or a photograph enhanced for effect: his family on one side, hers on the other. Four years married, she thought. She would be twenty-eight this summer.
Late July heat lingered in the air and warmed the lawn, though the sun was beginning to fade. The air was fragrant with live things. In the shaded areas, cool grass poked through Vivian’s sandals. She stood for a moment, studying her new home. Nowell’s grandfather had built the house as a newlywed and when he died in a hunting accident, Nowell’s grandmother stayed and finished raising their three children.
His grandmother was stubborn and tied to the place, Nowell said. She seldom took vacations or visited family. Vivian met Grandma Gardiner twice: at their wedding, and when Nowell’s brother, Lonnie, had a serious accident. The old woman hadn’t left much of an impression on her; she remembered spindly legs and gray hair pinned above