Free Grand Avenue by Joy Fielding Page A

felt.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Get some sleep.” His lips brushed against Susan’s forehead as he climbed out of bed.
    Susan heard her husband wrestling with his bathrobe at the foot of the four-poster bed, felt the vibrations of his bare feet on the carpet as he walked briskly from the room. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”she heard him ask as he pushed open the door to Ariel’s room.
    “I had a nightmare,” she heard Ariel sob.
    Susan knew all about nightmares. One nightmare in particular, she thought, closing her eyes, immediately seeing herself hunched over her desk in her Medieval Drama class, frantically trying to tame an unwieldy assortment of papers, to pummel them into some sort of coherent order, failing miserably, and then hearing her name shouted out loud, as if over a PA system: “Susan. Susan Norman. We’ll hear your presentation now,” as Professor Currier’s bald head bobbed up and down and Susan gathered her errant papers together and squeezed herself out of her seat, making her way to the front of the classroom.
    It was always at this moment in the dream that Susan realized she was naked. Alarmed, she’d try to preserve some modesty by hiding behind her papers, scrunching her shoulders forward, her pendulous breasts crushing against the small but bothersome roll of flesh at her stomach. But this new posture only emphasized the abundance of her exposed backside, and she’d hear the laughter of the other students, see their mocking fingers pointing toward her. Quickly she’d bring one hand around behind her, the sudden action sending her papers scattering, as she was forced to her hands and knees in a vain effort to retrieve them, the cruel laughter around her building to an almost deafening crescendo.
    That was usually the moment when she woke up, Susan thought gratefully, watching Owen tiptoe back across the carpet toward the bed. He threw hisbathrobe across the nearby chair and climbed under the covers, snuggling against her. “What was the problem?” she asked.
    “She wet the bed,” her husband said matter-of-factly.
    Susan’s entire body tensed. She had a class first thing in the morning, and she couldn’t just hand her mother a load of soiled linen as soon as the poor woman walked in the door. Could she?
Hi there. Ariel wet the bed again. I know you baby-sit every day and this wasn’t exactly part of our deal, but could you maybe do a few loads of wash and change the sheets since I have an important class and you’re just sitting around doing nothing but taking care of my children?
    “It’s okay,” Owen said, as if she’d been speaking out loud. “I changed the sheets and put the wet ones in the washing machine.”
    Susan sat up in bed, stared down at her husband of eleven years. “You did all that?”
    “Piece of cake,” he mumbled, eyes closed.
    “How’d I get so lucky?”
    “Get some sleep.” A satisfied smile settled into the lines around Owen’s eyes and mouth.
    “I love you,” Susan whispered, curling into the crook of his arm. Owen Norman might not be considered especially good-looking—he was of medium height and build and his features were too ordinary to be considered either distinguished or interesting—but he was a kind and decent man, not to mention a wonderful doctor, and everyone who knew him, patients and friends alike, trusted and admired him.
    Susan turned onto her left side, felt Owen turn withher, his hand falling across her generous expanse of hip. She was restless. The incident with Chris this afternoon had unsettled and upset her. Clearly, something was very wrong, something more than Chris was letting on, something more than the prospect of another baby, however ill-timed its conception. The women had discussed it over coffee at Vicki’s house, tried to devise strategies for drawing Chris out, ultimately decided they had no choice but to wait until Chris was ready to come to them. Whatever problems she was having, whatever Chris wasn’t