Michael Malone - Weebly

himself, with kindness. By that kindness they were, in
some peculiar way, joined. Behind the communication
must lie some sort of unspoken knowledge he had of
who she was, as well as her strange, unexpected sense
that she knew who this man Abernathy was better than
she knew John.
In her immaculate kitchen Judith took her pill, rinsed
and dried the glass, then returned to her knitting. She
wanted to think of Alf Marco, but she thought of
Winslow Abernathy's life, of his ease with wealth and
degrees, of his sons—one a lawyer like himself, the
other remarkably handsome—she recalled someone
laughing in an officer's uniform. The picture hurt her for
John, who had neither sons nor ease. She imagined
Abernathy's wife, Beatrice Dingley Abernathy, who
received letters from charities and almost daily catalogs
from fashionable stores. A handsome woman with a
kind smile. She imagined her as someone rather like
Rose Kennedy, who had once visited the Madder
orphanage. Beatrice Dingley Abernathy. She must be
the type of woman John would have wanted. A woman
of gracious dignity, refined by breeding and education,