Cradle Lake Read Online Free

they stared at Jerry Lee.
    â€œReally,” Alan promised, “he’s a big old dummy. Perfectly harmless.”
    â€œI’m sure.” Hank cleared his throat and put one hand on the back of his daughter’s neck. “Well, anyway, you folks have a good night.”
    They left.
    â€œHey,” Alan said, looking into the dog’s sloppy eyes. Jerry Lee seemed perfectly fine now. “What’s gotten into you, huh, bud?”
    â€œHe’s probably cranky from the car ride.” It was the first thing Heather had said to him without being prompted in what seemed like forever.
    â€œProbably.” Alan went to the front windows and peekedout past the latticework of vines that veined the windowpane. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a grown man use the word
tawdry
before.” He watched the Gerski family cross the street toward their house. They looked like the perfect middle-class
Leave It to Beaver
family. Well,
almost
perfect: he noticed Hank walked with a slight limp.
    When he turned away from the window, Heather was gone.
Blink—right out of existence.
Yet he could hear her in the kitchen, setting the food down on the stove. Alan went to the bathroom and peered at his reflection. Even without the peppery sprinkle of a bruise on his right cheek, which indeed had swollen to nearly twice its normal size, and the bleeding laceration above his eyebrow, he was surprised to find his reflection looking haggard and run-down.
    I’m thinking too much about it,
he told himself. It was the truth.
I’m thinking too much, and I’m going to cause the goddamn ulcer to act up again. Stop it already.
    The ulcer had developed last year after the second miscarriage. At the time he had thought it fitting that he should suffer with stomach pains after Heather’s womb had equally suffered. But what was so easily rectified in him with antacid tablets and misoprostol could not take away the memory of the miscarriages nor fix whatever was inside Heather that had caused them.
    After scrounging around in a number of cardboard moving boxes, Alan finally located the little white first-aid kit with the red cross on the lid. He applied peroxide to the gash above his eyebrow, gritting his teeth at the sting.
    Five minutes later, when he felt somewhat better andhis face was cleaned up, he went into the living room and found Heather sitting on the sofa, right in the middle of the room where the movers had left it, staring blankly at one wall.
    â€œHon,” he said, “you hungry?”
    He waited several moments until the silence grew intolerable.
    Then he went into the kitchen and uncorked the bottle of wine.

CHAPTER THREE
    Long before Alan Hammerstun had ever dreamt he and his wife would be living in his uncle’s house in North Carolina, they had spent five months trying to get pregnant. They had talked long and hard about children, though they both agreed early on that they wanted a big family.
    One question, among myriad others, was that of location. Heather had grown up in the Midwest, with sprawling acres on which to run and play, lots of animals and friends and well-meaning neighbors at every turn. Alan, on the other hand, had been a child of Manhattan and knew of no other life. There was some brief talk, initiated by Heather, about relocating outside the city for the benefit of their future children. Alan had insisted city life would be good for their unborn progeny, citing the importance of learning how to deal with different types of people while attaining certain street smarts that he didn’t believe were easily come by outside a major metropolitan area.
    Those conversations died down, however, after months and months of trying to conceive without result. Each time Heather had her period there was a definite gloom that overtook them but nothing serious. Not in the beginning, anyway. They didn’t truly start to worry until, ironically, they went to the doctor to