A Big Storm Knocked It Over Read Online Free

things of the world didn’t seem to mean much.
    Her new husband, Charlie Platt, was rich and settled. He had always been rich and settled. Together they had bought a sizable town house just for themselves and either gave or went to parties almost constantly. Lilly had a passion for social life. If she was not invited to a party, she gave one. She and Charlie were on the boards of hospitals, halfway houses, and foundations to study rare diseases, and they went to balls that raised money for the opera, the Artists League, or the Print Society. Her closet was the size of Jane Louise’s bathroom.
    Her father had been dead for ten years. He would never see hisdaughter’s husband and would never see her children, if she ever had any. At the thought of this, tears sprang out of her eyes. For a minute she could not stop crying. Then she turned on her side and fell into a dreamless sleep from which she was awakened by Teddy.
    â€œYou must have been really wiped to fall asleep on that thing,” Teddy said.
    â€œI just suddenly felt as if someone had pulled the plug,” Jane Louise said. “All my energy went. I’m starving. Let’s make dinner.”
    Teddy made the salad, and Jane Louise grilled the chops, just like dolls in a dollhouse. The kitchen rang with the sound of the two of them.
    â€œMy mother called,” Teddy said. “She’s going off to see her friend Nancy Aldrich in Boston and she wants to know if we want to use the house.”
    â€œDo we?” Jane Louise asked.
    â€œIt’s up to you,” said Teddy. “The leaves have turned, and we could bundle up and go canoeing.”
    The idea of bundling up and going canoeing on Marshall Pond—actually a lake—where Teddy’s grandmother, mother, and Teddy himself had learned to swim seemed like heaven to Jane Louise, and being married to Teddy gave her access to it.
    â€œI love lamb chops,” Teddy said. Jane Louise looked at him. Was this a conversation between married people? It seemed to her that they had been much freer three weeks ago, before they were married.
    â€œI bought them because you love them, you twit,” she said. “Isn’t marriage weird?”
    â€œIt’s probably less weird when you do it in your early twenties,” Teddy said. “Like Beth and Peter.”
    â€œYes, but mostly, unlike Beth and Peter, when you get marriedin your early twenties, by the time you’re our age you’ve already been divorced and remarried.”
    â€œI think my dressing is delicious,” Teddy said.
    â€œCurry,” said Jane Louise, tasting it.
    After dinner Jane Louise attempted to curl up on Teddy’s lap. Her legs were too long, so they sat with their legs intertwined. “I don’t feel at all like myself,” she said. “Do you think something’s wrong with me?”
    â€œI think we just got married,” Teddy said. “We’re not kids, so it’s more serious.”
    Jane Louise gazed into the eyes of her husband, a serious person if there ever was one. His eyes were hazel. It was often not easy to know what he was thinking or feeling. On the other hand, he was easy to make comfortable, and his wants were not many. Furthermore, although he had had a series of long-term relationships with women, he had put in time living alone and could fend for himself. He did not eat out of cans.
    Thus, when Jane Louise was sick she could expect more than a piece of toast. Teddy did not much like cooking: He seemed happy and grateful when Jane Louise did it for him. He had been brought up by a rigorously unfussy woman who did feed herself out of cans. Eleanor hated to cook, hated most housework. She was, as Edie often said, a being without much interest in traditional gentler roles: the perfect mother for a boy, since she taught Teddy what she knew about—gardening, bicycle riding, and bird identification. She had set him up to be charmed by a person