The American Wife. Kristina McMorris

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СКАЧАТЬ of the last time I had that much fun.”

      The vision of TJ hammering out his aggressions on Paul came back in a flash of images. “I’m just glad I’m not your enemy,” Lane said with a smile—one that faded the moment he recalled what had initially provoked the fight.

      

3

      It was on nights like this that Maddie missed her most, when her love life seemed a jumble of knots only a mother could untangle. More than that, her mom’s advice would have fostered hopes of a happily ever after.

      The woman had been nothing if not a romantic.

      She’d adored roses and rainstorms and candlelight, in that order. She had declared chocolate an essential food for the heart, and poetry as replenishment for the soul. She’d kept every courtship note from her husband—who she’d sworn was more handsome than Clark Gable—and had no qualms about using her finest serving ware for non-holiday dinners. Life, she would say, was too short not to use the good china. As though she had known how short hers would be.

      Maddie tugged her bathrobe over her cotton nightgown. Unfortunately, no amount of warmth would relax the wringing in her chest. Always this was the cost of remembering her mother. The one remedy Maddie could count on was music.

      She placed the violin case on her bed. Unlatching the lid, she freed her instrument from its red velvet–lined den. The smooth wood of the violin, of the bow, felt cool and wonderful in her hands. Like a crisp spring morning. Like air.

      An audience of classical composers—black-and-white, wallet-sized portraits—sat poised in the lid’s interior. Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Tchaikovsky peered with critical eyes. Do our works justice, Miss Kern, or give us due cause to roll over in our graves.

      She rosined and tuned in systematic preparation. Then she positioned herself properly before the music stand. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major. The sheets were aligned and ready. She knew them by heart but took no chances. She placed the chin rest at her jaw, inhaling the fragrance of the polished woodwork. A shiver of anticipation traveled through her.

      Eyes intent on the prelude, she raised her bow over the bridge. Her internal metronome ticked two full measures of allegro tempo. Only then did she launch the horsehairs into action. Notes pervaded the room, precise and sharp. Her fingertips rippled toward the scroll and down again, like a wave fighting its own current. The strings vibrated beneath her skin, the bow skipped under her control. And with each passing phrase, each conquered slur, the twisting on her heart loosened, the memories faded away.

      By the time she reached the final note, the calculated stanzas had brought order back to her life. She held her pose in silence, waiting reluctantly for the world to reenter her consciousness.

      “Maddie?”

      Startled back, she turned toward the doorway.

      “Just wanted to say good night.” Her brother held what appeared to be ice cubes bound by a dishcloth on his right knuckles. His scuffle with Paul suddenly seemed days rather than hours ago. “Got a game tomorrow morning. Then I’m taking Jimmy’s shift,” he reminded her.

      “Are you sure you can do all that, with your hand?”

      He glanced down. “Ah, it’s nothin’,” he said, lowering the injury to his side.

      TJ’s hand could be broken into a thousand pieces—as could his heart—and he’d never admit it.

      “That sounded good, by the way,” he said. “The song you were playing.”

      She offered a smile. “Thanks.”

      “You using it for the audition?”

      “I might. If I make it past the required pieces.”

      “Well, don’t sweat it. I know you’re gonna get in next time.” In contrast to this past year, he meant, when she had blown the audition at I.M.A.

      Under the Juilliard School of Music, the Institute of Musical Art had been established in New York to rival the best of European conservatories. Maddie’s entrance into the program was a goal her dad had instilled in her since her ninth birthday. He’d gifted her with a used violin, marking the first time he had ever expressed grand hopes for her future, versus her brother’s.

      “You know, I was thinking ….” Maddie fidgeted with the end of her bow. “When I visit Dad this week, you should come along.”

      TJ’s eyes darkened. “I got a lot of stuff to do.”

      “But, we could go any day you’d like.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “TJ,” she said wearily. “He’s been there a year and you haven’t gone once. You can’t avoid him forever.”

      “Wanna bet?” Resentment toughened his voice, a cast shielding a wound—that wound being grief, Maddie was certain. She had yet to see him shed a tear over their mother’s death, and those feelings had to have pooled somewhere.

      After a long moment brimming with the unspoken, his expression softened. She told herself to hug him, a sign she understood. Yet the lie of that prevented her from moving. Their father, after all, had never even been charged. How many years would TJ continue to blame him?

      TJ studied his ice bag and murmured, “I’m just not ready, okay?”

      Maddie knew better than to push him, mule-headed as he could be. Besides, she couldn’t discount his admission, which held promise, if thin. And truth, the core of his existence.

      “Fair enough.” She tried to smile, but the contrast of her ongoing deception soured her lips.

      Lane.

      Her steady.

      It had been Maddie’s idea to keep their courtship a secret, at least until the relationship developed. With TJ’s temperament heightening along with his protectiveness of her, why get him hot and bothered for no reason? His friendship with Lane aside, society’s resistance to mixed couples wouldn’t have helped her case.

      Tonight, though, from her brother’s old smile to his old laugh, his defending Lane with gusto, she saw an opening for his approval. She needed to act before the opportunity closed.

      “Well, good night,” TJ said, and angled away.

      “Wait.”

      He looked at her.

      The words gathered in her throat, but none of them suitable for a brother. She didn’t dare describe how a mere glance from Lane could make her feel more glamorous than a starlet. How his touch to her lower spine, while guiding her through a doorway, would cause a tingle beyond description.

      “What is it?” TJ pressed.

      Time to be square with him. She clutched her bow and hoped for the best. “The thing that Paul said,” she began, “about me and Lane … together …”

      He СКАЧАТЬ