Free This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith Page A

‘It’s too bad about his mother,’ or something like that, and he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ and I said that she had to be in a nursing home, and he said no, she was dead. It was on their record and he remembered it. I didn’t go into it, naturally. I certainly wasn’t trying to probe. I just told Mr. Lewissohn I must have gotten mixed up.”
    David knew his face must be white, because he felt about to faint. “Mr. Lewissohn’s mistaken. She’s very ill and she may die in a few months, but she’s not dead. He’s made a mistake about that record.” But David remembered the record now too, the simple “ No ” he had written in a questionnaire’s blank two years ago. He hadn’t thought of it since the day he filled it out. What if Wes should find out? Or maybe Effie had already told him.
    Wes was back.
    Effie and Wes had a nightcap of scotch, and David a cup of coffee—instant coffee, since the pot was empty. Then they got up to leave. Effie looked strange, he thought, and he attributed it to the fact she perhaps did not believe what he had said about his mother. As he was about to thank her for his portrait, which he had picked up, she said, “On second thought, I’d better spray it with fixative before you take it. Otherwise it’ll smear.” Her eyes looked straight into his as she spoke, and he knew he would never see the drawing again.

6
    A letter from Annabelle arrived the next day, the eighteenth of December. Seeing it on the wicker table, David did not snatch it but picked it up quietly along with a picture postcard with a California landscape, probably from his cousin Louise. He climbed the stairs to his room.
    He took off his coat and nervously hung it, yanking its front straight on the hanger, closed the wardrobe door, then sat down at his writing table, the better to bear whatever the letter might contain. It was two pages, written only on one side, and his eyes swam over the whole thing before they focused.
    Dec. 16, 1958
    Dear Dave,
    Pardon me for taking such a long time to answer you—but I think I have a good excuse! I have just had a baby, an 8½ pound boy. There were some complications—or rather some were expected, so I was afraid to say anything before “it” was actually here, but now everything is fine. I hope you can understand, Dave, that with a baby to take care of it is impossible for me to think of going anywhere. He was born Dec. 2, at 4:10 A.M. , which makes him two weeks old today.
    Dave, I really can understand that this may come as a surprise to you, but it shouldn’t. I am happy—at least right now—and though I might have been equally happy or more happy with you, that is just not the way things worked out. To think of anything else except the way things are is just to live in a world of the imagination—fine for some things but not for real life. Don’t you agree?
    I’ll have to take a job as soon as I’m able to arrange about the baby, as Gerald has made a bad mistake about his shop (against everybody’s advice) and consequently has had great expenses. Enough of that.
    I must end this as I have a million things to do. I’m sorry I can’t see you, especially just before Xmas. Are you going to California for Xmas? I do think of you, Dave.
    With much love, as ever,
Annabelle
    David stood up and faced his triad of windows. A baby. It was unbelievable, just unbelievable. His stunned brain played for a moment with the idea she had only made this up, perhaps to startle, to hurt him so that he would not try to write her again—her objective being to make him stop hurting himself. If she had been going to have a baby, wouldn’t she have said so months ago? Wouldn’t any woman?
    He sat for a long while on his bed, frowning with an attentive, puzzled expression at the carpet, until finally a knock on the door roused him.
    It was Sarah,