Free Weep for Me by John D. MacDonald Page A

fast. Her system couldn’t handle it.
    She straightened up, wavering, her face grayish green, her blue eyes dead. “Better get me home, Kyle.”
    “Honey, you take a nap. Then you’ll feel all right.”
    “Don’t want me here. Not with her here.”
    I shook her until her head wobbled loosely on her shoulders. “Take a nap. It’s an order.”
    She started to cry. “Everything goes wrong. Everything.”
    “Everything is going to be all right. Take a nap. I’ll phone your house and tell them we’re going to be out to dinner and a movie and we’ll be back late. Then I’ll phone Anderson. There’s a pay station down the street.”
    “Anderson? Oh, Kyle, darling!”
    She stretched out like an obedient child. I took off her shoes. “You’ll wake me up?”
    “With kisses.”
    I went down to the pay station. I phoned her house. Ed, barely able to talk, said that the ambulance was on the way to pick up Mom. I called a taxi and we went directly from my place to the hospital. Jo Anne looked like a blonde ghost. We found out from the doctor that Mom had know for seven months that she had incurable cancer, and had preferred to keep it to herself, to try to keep from collapsing until Jo Anne was married. Yes, she could be relieved of most of the pain and nursed at home. Daphne had turned back into a child. A frightened child.

Chapter Seven
    O n the following Tuesday, when Mrs. Lane was brought home from the hospital, Jo Anne was permitted by the insurance company to take a leave of absence.
    After I saw Mrs. Lane, Jo Anne took a short walk with me while Daphne stayed with her mother.
    “How long will she last?” I asked.
    “They don’t know,” Jo Anne said in a dull voice. “She has a lot of vitality. Maybe as long as a year. I’ll stay with it. We can’t afford a nurse for that long.”
    “She’s got a lot of courage. And so have you.”
    She looked at me. “I’ve got no courage at all, Kyle. When this is all over, come back if you want to.” She put the ring in my hand.
    I looked stupidly at it. “But, Jo Anne, we could …”
    “Call on her once in a while. She’ll like that. Afterwards, if we can pick up the pieces of our own life, Kyle, well and good. I’ve held you tied for too long as it is. I know that now. Whatever happens, good luck.”
    It was the moment for protestations. It was the time to tell her she was wrong, that it was a burden I could share. She would be hard to convince, but I knew that I could convince her.
    I didn’t even try. I stood there, with a damnable hypocritical look of sorrow on my face, and back in my heart some evil little creature thought of Emily’s thighs of long sleek marble, and it danced and danced.
    Wednesday I was waiting for Emily Rudolph when she came out of the bank. It was a sort of anniversary. I had first seen her two weeks before. June was now nearly over. The first time I had waited for her I had worried about the others seeing me. Now it didn’t make any difference. I fell in stride with her.
    “Surprised you haven’t left town, Emily,” I said.
    She stared straight ahead and did not answer.
    “A girl like you should pursue luck. I’ve thought about you a lot.”
    Still she didn’t answer. I kept pace with her, standing at her side as we waited for the lights. When she bought a newspaper, I waited patiently. At last, in the last block, there was no one within earshot of us for a few seconds.
    “I was doing a little research,” I said, “When it’s winter here, it’s summer in Buenos Aires.”
    She went on for four of those gliding steps of hers and then stopped absolutely dead. It took me by surprise. I continued on for a step or two and turned and looked at her. Her lips were parted and there were faint pink spots of color in her cheeks.
    I looked at her steadily. I left no doubt of my meaning. She began walking again. And this time, she took my arm. I glanced at her. Something seemed to twist violently beneath the dark sheen of her