Free Splintered Heart by Emily Frankel Page B

water to boil.
    The telephone rang.
    She thought it might be Ferris, knew it was probably Mamma. They had not spoken yet today. She fixed her tea quickly, before answering.
    "Hello?" Marian put as much energy and cheer in her voice as she could muster. It helped Mamma if Marian was peppy.
    "Is…uh…Ferris Cooper there?"
    It was a woman's voice again.
    "Ferris Cooper?" Marian repeated, surprised.
    "Mr. Ferris Cooper? This is LE 4-3017 isn't it?" The voice articulated each digit carefully, making certain it was the correct number.
    "Yes it is, but he isn't here. Who's calling please?" It was unusual for someone to be phoning Ferris at home in the middle of the day.
    "Well, he's not at his office. They said he wasn't coming in today."
    "Oh?" That was a very strange thing to hear.
    "Well, just tell him Myra Peterson phoned to let him know that Andrea is going to be late for their date — they're supposed to be meeting at five at the Algonquin but Andrea is going to be at least a half-hour late."
    "Andrea?"
    "Yes. A-n-d-r-e-a," She spelled out each letter. "Just tell Ferris she's going to be late," the woman said.
    There was a click and the woman was gone.
    After a while, Marian got up, emptied the tea cup, and washed it in the sink. The hot water from the faucet was scalding. Her hands got redder and redder. She was aware of her hands changing color but she felt no pain. It was the same sort of feeling, lack of feeling that she'd felt watching them put her Father's coffin into the earth.
    It was as if someone else's hands were placing the washed cup back on the shelf and closing the cabinet. The hands were wet. It was as if the hands led her to the towel rack in the bathroom. She dried them, staring down at a zigzag crack in the tile floor.
    ...."Andrea"...
    There was ice in Marian's heart like a cold cruel splinter. She felt cold all over as if the ice was spreading. The truth was crystal clear and very simple.
    Ferris was involved with another woman. Her name was An drea .
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    Chapter 10
    At six-thirty, Ferris' key sounded in the lock. The click of the tumblers, the clack-clack of the door knob turned then springing back, the opening door, the sound of it closing, his steps as he moved to the brass hooks to hang his coat, the clatter of his keys in the pewter dish — each sound seemed to be a separate event that was spaced out so that at any point she could break in, interrupt the inevitability of the steps that were bringing him to the kitchen. She knew she should sing out a greeting that would divert him to his study, the shower, or to some other ordinary domestic routine. But she couldn't.
    "Don't let me say anything, God, stop me please," she prayed. She'd been sitting in the breakfast nook on the wooden bench for a long time. The sun had gone down. Street lights were on outside the windows, the appliances had a phosphorescent ghostly presence which vanished as Ferris snapped on the light.
    "Darling, what are you doing in here in the dark?"
    It took Marian's eyes a second to adjust. She spoke quietly. "You were supposed to meet her at the Algonquin Hotel at five o'clock, weren't you, but she was late, wasn't she? Andrea — that's her name, isn't it Ferris?"
    Ferris said "Yes."
    An injury had been made, no bones broken, no break in the skin but it was extremely painful. An internal bruise, it did not show but it would take a long, long time to heal. Silence was not a remedy. Marian knew that from observing her Mamma's quiet suffering for many years.
    "You might as well sit down," she said. "I think we'd better talk."
    Ferris wanted to take Marian in his arms, smooth back her hair, speak to her as husband of the many things that had happened while she had been away — the girl was unimportant, what he needed to talk about was the pressures that had made him vulnerable, susceptible to an outside relationship. He sat down on the opposite side of the table so that he could see her face, her eyes especially.