Free The Stand (Original Edition) by Stephen King Page B

of that particular tone of light in the middle of January and it would make her heart ache fiercely. The light of an early summer afternoon as it slipped toward dark had so many good things wrapped up in it: baseball at the Little League park, where Fred had always played third and batted clean-up; watermelon; first corn; iced tea in chilled glasses; childhood.
    Frannie cleared her throat a little. “Need a hand?”
    He turned and grinned. “Caught me diggin, didn’t you?”
    “I guess I did.”
    “Is your mother back yet?” He frowned vaguely, and then his face cleared. “No, that’s right, she just went, didn’t she? Sure, pitch a hand if you want to. Just don’t forget to wash up afterward.”
    “A lady’s hands proclaim her habits,” Fran mocked lightly, and snorted. Peter tried to look disapproving and did a poor job of it.
    She got down in the row next to him and began to weed. Sparrows were twittering and there was a constant hum of traffic on US 1, less than a block from here. It hadn’t reached the volume it would in July, when there would be a fatal accident nearly every day between here and Kittery, but it was building.
    Peter told her about his day and she responded with the right questions. He was a machinist in a large Sanford auto parts firm, the largest auto parts firm north of Boston. He was sixty-four and about to start on his last year of work before retirement. A short year at that, because he had four weeks’ vacation time stockpiled, which he planned to take in September, after the “ijits” went home.
    His voice switched from topic to topic, mellow and soothing. Their shadows grew longer, moving up the rows before them. She was lulled by it, as she always had been. She had come here to tell him something, but since earliest childhood she had often come to tell and stayed to listen. He didn’t bore her. So far as she knew, he didn’t bore anyone, except possibly her mother. He was a storyteller, and a good one.
    She became aware that he had stopped talking. He was sitting on a rock at the end of his row, tamping his pipe and looking at her.
    “What’s on your mind, Frannie?”
    She looked at him dumbly for a moment, not sure how she should proceed. She had come out here to tell him, and now she wasn’t sure if she could. The silence hung between them, growing larger, and at last it was a gulf she couldn’t stand. She jumped.
    “I’m pregnant,” she said simply.
    He stopped filling his pipe and just looked at her. “Pregnant,” he said, as if he had never heard the word before. Then he said: “Oh, Frannie . . . is it a joke? Or a game?”
    “No, Daddy.”
    “Come over here.”
    Obediently, she came up the row and sat next to him. There was a rock wall that divided their land from the town common next door. Beyond the rock wall was a tangled, sweet-smelling hedge that had long ago run wild in the most amiable way. Her head was pounding and she felt a little sick to her stomach.
    “For sure?” he asked her.
    “For sure,” she said, and then—there was no artifice in it, not a trace, she simply couldn’t help it—she began to cry in great, braying sobs. He held her with one arm for what seemed to be a very long time. When her tears began to taper off, she forced herself to ask the question that troubled her the most.
    “Daddy, do you still like me?”
    “What?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Yes. I still like you fine, Frannie.”
    That made her cry again, but this time he let her tend herself while he got his pipe going. Borkum Riff began to ride slowly off on the faint breeze.
    “Are you disappointed?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I never had a pregnant daughter before and am not sure just how I should take it. Was it that Jess?”
    She nodded.
    “You told him?”
    She nodded again.
    “What did he say?”
    “He said he would marry me. Or pay for an abortion.”
    “Marriage or abortion,” Peter Goldsmith said, and drew on his pipe. “He’s a regular