Free Possession by Ann Rule Page B

reappearance. There were some good times, enough to keep him holding on. Spring finally came—Seattle's green, water-washed spring with the sun breaking through the overcast only in late afternoon. They sat on her deck and tossed bread to the audacious ducks who ignored even Pistol. He brought her geraniums to replenish the dead foliage in the planters 57

    edging the lake, and she thanked him gravely. He painted the weathered siding and carried a pickup load of trash away.

    He wanted to move in, but she was resolute that he could not.

    "I need down-time. I can't have someone here all the time—not even you."

    To his surprise and delight, she submitted her body to him finally, and the melding with her brought him to a place from which there was no return. Nina was as wildly responsive in bed as she was removed from him everywhere else, all mouth and hands and lips as soft as bruised roses. She sobbed and cried out and murmured obscenities, shuddering in his arms with a passion he had never encountered in more than two decades of sex.

    He was never sure that he pleased her even then. When it was over, she rolled away from him and became as quiet as death. He had actually propped himself on one elbow to stare at her narrow ribcage in the dark to be sure that it still rose and fell from the force of living lungs beneath. He could not comprehend how their two bodies could move and breathe together at orgasm and only an instant later be further apart than at any other time.

    He found the picture of the baby on a Saturday afternoon as he gathered still another load for the dump, a three-by-five hospital picture of a newborn infant with squinted eyes, a red face, and a tiny bow atop the thick dark hair. Beneath the swaddled baby form, there was a number and the words, "Baby Girl Armitage. 1-2-69."

    Nina stepped into the room and saw him studying it, puzzled as he sat back on his heels. She took it from him and put it in a kitchen drawer wordlessly. Her skin, always milky, turned so white that the freckles seemed black in contrast.

    "Whose baby is that?" he asked.

    "Mine. She was mine."

    "Where is she?"

    "Dead. Dead these many years."

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    "I'm sorry."
    "Don't be. It was such a long time ago. Mr. Armitage was sorry too, at first. And then, after he quit crying, he decided it was my fault. He was sure that I covered her up too tight, or not tight enough, or betrayed some other great defect in what a mother should be. I wasn't the maternal type; he always said that. He never forgave me. He took himself off and married a very maternal type, a real mother hen, and fathered three more babies to make up for... for... Sari."
    "But you knew it wasn't your fault."
    "Did I? No, I don't think I did. See?"
    She pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and turned her wrists over to hold them in front of his eyes. He saw the fine drawing up of skin there, almost lacy with corrugated scars. He kissed the white lines and held her wrists against his face.
    "Don't pity me," she said quietly. "If you ever pity me, I'll be gone so fast your head will spin."
    "Is that why you drink?"
    She looked at him with no expression in her dark eyes, and shook her head.
    "No. I drank before. I always drank. I have a talent for it. You'd think it would kill me, wouldn't you?"
    "Do you wish it would?"
    She picked up the fat gray cat and held it against her, burying her face in its fur. Then she met his eyes again. "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous."
    "We could have a baby. Would you try again with me?"
    "Thank you. It's a most gracious offer. But I'm too old, and you're too old, and I don't believe in babies anymore." God, how he'd wanted to save her. He'd been so convinced that he could rescue her and he'd never wanted anything so much in his life. His track record at making women happy was somewhat muddied, but he had never loved a woman the way he loved Nina. He felt sure that if he could only love her enough, she would have to love him back and be