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Suzanne Beecher www.DearReader.com

Jessica's just finished her second book, Others Less Fortunate and she's graciously letting us take a sneak peek at her manuscript. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Be sure to let me know what you thought of it. Did you want to keep reading? I'll forward your comments to Jessica and she's promised to answer all of her mail. Thanks. Send your comments to: Suzanne@emailbookclub.com

Chapter One

I grew up in a six-bedroom house in Soquaset, Massachusetts. Nobody spelled the name of our town correctly. Letters came to our six-bedroom house that said Soquashit or Sacquatics, or Socket. And Massachusetts always invited too many esses and not enough tees. The town, seven miles inland, was close enough to water by car but a good hour north of Boston. In the fifties and sixties the town grew and became known for its excellent school system and green neighborhoods. By the time I turned seven, Mother let me—the second oldest and only daughter of four—walk to Soquaset Square without an adult.

Our blue, clapboard house had slanted ceilings in the attic bedrooms where my oldest and youngest brothers slept; window seats in the den; and closets full of Mother’s gowns, high-heeled shoes and cedar shoehorns. Neighbors admired our house for its stained glass windows in the turn of the stairs and in the dining room windows facing west. At dinnertime, when the sun exited the front yard, it left a trail of orange shadows across my plate.

Every weeknight at a quarter to six, my father trudged up the driveway, flung open the kitchen door, and closed it with a determined thud.

“Anybody home?” he bellowed as if he expected the house to be empty and the furniture cleared out.

My father, Leonard Kunitz, a tenured professor at a small, private college rarely modulated his voice between the podium and pantry. To think there might be a difference didn’t occur to him.

“Anybody home? Hello?”

In harmonic contrast my mother floated down from the bedroom to meet him for a pre-dinner drink. She moved without gravity when she took her pain pills before dinner, the ones that looked like aspirin, only bigger. The name typed on the vial said Irene Lenore. The instructions said Fiorinal 3x a day.

In the den, Father flipped two shots of vodka down his throat while Mother drank Scotch with a twist of lime and one ice cube. She took medium swallows. Together they smoked cigarettes in flowered armchairs, embraced by the arc of the bay windows that gave us a grand view of the backyard.

Usually dinner lasted all of seven minutes—a frantic rush to gulp down firsts, then seconds.

“There’s more in the kitchen,” Mother said. “Luanne? Could you bring the rice in?” Luanne was our maid from Haiti.

Father ate like a starved child, his dark, quick eyes scooping up the slightest imperfections in everyone around him. He had small shoulders, a slight paunch, and wore loosely tucked in shirts, blazers, knit ties, and crumpled corduroy pants, which set him apart from Mother’s fastidious appearance and those of her country club peers.

“Leonard. There’s plenty of rice.”

At the table, Mother sat straight as a violin bow, her back to the kitchen. She wore her dyed blond hair short and layered like rose petals, her favorite flower. Adorned in suits and matching scarves, she looked streamlined as a glass vase, even when she came in from the garden in slacks, the dirt and thorns clinging to her gloves.

“Why don’t you start the coffee now,” Mother said, as Luanne placed the rice, steaming in a covered dish, on the table.

She had petite features—tiny wrists, slim calves that she liked to show off at parties—and the largest collection of shoes in the neighborhood. She filled her days with bridge or luncheons during the week. On Thursdays, she went to the hairdressers then food shopping on Fridays. Occasionally, she signed up for a flower arrangement class or joined friends from the country club for communal sessions on cross-stitching. This didn’t last. Her rheumatic fingers refused such delicate work. But I have the pillow she made: a green and white checkerboard pattern backed with dark green felt. It’s a small item but I cherish it.

All these things replaced the musical life she once led: the violin recitals and college concerts, the discipline of rehearsals and practice replaced by a need for order in the house; the need to perform taken up with these variants of social gatherings, a way to keep herself on public display. Something else inside her was not keeping up. I just didn’t know it then.

“What are we having for dessert?” Father asked.

“Cookies.”

continued . . .