Free A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar Page B

particular tone, as if you were challenging me to knock a chip off your shoulder. . . . Daisy, what’s happening to us?”
    â€œNothing.” She knew what was happening, though; what had, in fact, already happened. She had stepped out of her usual role, had changed lines and costumes, and now the director was agi­tated because he no longer knew what play he was directing. Poor Jim, she thought, and reached over and took his hand. “Nothing,” she said again.
    They were sitting side by side on the davenport. The house was very quiet. The rain had stopped temporarily, Stella had gone home after surviving another day in the country, and Mrs. Field­ing was at a concert with a friend. Prince, the collie, was sleeping in front of the fireplace, where he always slept in bad weather. Even though there was no fire in the grate, he liked the remem­bered warmth of other fires.
    â€œBe fair, Daisy,” Jim said, pressing her hand. “I’m not one of these heavy husbands who wants his wife to have no interests outside himself. Haven’t I always encouraged your activities?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, then? What have you been doing, Daisy?”
    â€œWalking around.”
    â€œIn all this rain?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWalking around where?”
    â€œThe old neighborhood on Laurel Street.”
    â€œBut why?”
    â€œThat was where we were living when I”— when I died —”when it happened.”
    His mouth looked as though she’d reached up and pinched it. “Did you imagine that what happened was still there, like a piece of furniture we forgot to bring along?”
    â€œIn a sense it’s still there.”
    â€œWell, in that case, why didn’t you walk up to the door and inquire? Why didn’t you ask the occupants if they’d mind if you searched the attic for a lost day?”
    â€œThere was no one at home.”
    â€œOh, for God’s sake, you mean you actually tried to get in?”
    â€œI rang the doorbell. No one answered.”
    â€œThank heaven for small mercies. What would you have said if someone had answered?”
    â€œJust that I used to live there once and would like to see the house again.”
    â€œRather than have you make such an exhibition of yourself,” he said coldly, “I’ll buy the house back for you. Then you can spend all your afternoons there, you can search every nook and cranny of the damn place, examine every piece of junk you find.”
    She had withdrawn her hand from his. For a while the contact had been like a bridge between them, but the bridge had washed away in the bitter flood of his irony. “I’m not looking for—junk. I don’t intend making an exhibition of myself either. I went back because I thought that if I found myself in the same situation as before, I might remember something valuable.”
    â€œValuable? The golden moment of your death, perhaps? Isn’t that just a little morbid? When did you fall in love with the idea of dying?”
    She got up and crossed the room as if trying to get beyond the range of his sarcasm. The movement warned him that he was going too far, and he changed his tone.
    â€œAre you so bored with your life, Daisy? Do you consider the past four years a living death? Is that what your dream means?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œIt’s not your dream.”
    The dog had awakened and was moving his eyes back and forth, from Daisy to Jim and back to Daisy, like a spectator at a tennis match.
    â€œI don’t want to quarrel,” Daisy said. “It upsets the dog.”
    â€œIt upsets the—oh, for Pete’s sake. All right, all right, we won’t quarrel. Can’t have the dog getting upset. It’s O.K., though, if the rest of us are reduced to gibbering idiocy. We’re just people, we don’t deserve any better.”
    She was petting the dog’s head in a