Read You Are Not A Stranger Here for Free Online

close to a museum. I could enroll in classes again; it wouldn't have taken many to finish. And near a city, I might do research. Jack--he'd nod at that. I was a college girl, you 35
    see, a catch." She chuckled. "Twenty-five years ago, that ghost you saw out there--he was a handsome boy." Her eyes came to rest on the floor by her feet. "Are you married, Dr. Briggs?"
    There was a familiarity, almost a caring, to the way she asked the question, as though she were inquiring not for her own information but to give him the chance to tell her.
    "No," he said. "I'm not."
    "Is it something you hope to do?"
    He imagined his professors judging him unprofessional for answering these questions. "Yes," he said, "I'd like to."
    She nodded but made no reply.
    "You married soon after you returned?" he asked.
    "That's right. Jason, my first son, he came early on. Of course, it made sense to save money for a while. Get a house here, just for a year or two, before the big move. I imagine you went to a Montessori, didn't you? Or a country day school--maps on the walls." She smiled at Frank, a wan, generous smile. "He was so bright, Doctor, from the very beginning. I wanted him to have all that. I really did.
    "I'd kept my books from college, and there were the ones Jack had, and some I bought. So while the school taught him George Washington every year, I read to him. I wasn't a fanatic, I didn't throw the television out, we didn't ground him. I read him books after supper and when he got older he read them himself. And I showed him things. I played him records, drove him to Chicago once, took him to the museum. He liked the paintings all right, but you should have seen the look on his face when he saw the height of those buildings 36
    and all the people in the streets--delighted, that's what he was, delighted. I couldn't stand the idea of him hanging around here, waiting for some dead-end job. Of course that made me a snob, wanting more for him. Those teachers down at the high school, they didn't like me. Too much trouble.
    "Round about when he was fourteen, this place, it started doing its work on him somehow. I could see it happening. The little tough guy stance, afraid of anything that wouldn't make him popular. His father had started drinking by then. Everything was going to hell around here, prices dropping through the floor, all these farms that couldn't make a dime. Jack spent his days taking people's homes and property their families had owned for decades. So it didn't worry me at first, I figured the man deserved a drink or two when he came home. That was before the bank went under. And as for symptoms, yes, to tell you the truth, I was depressed. I was. Things hadn't gone like we'd planned. I kept thinking about the girls I'd roomed with, visiting Europe, standing in front of those pictures. I shouldn't have done that--let myself look back that way. It's the sort of thing kids notice, the way you're not really there in the room with them."
    She paused. It appeared to Frank as though she were deciding whether or not to go on. Their eyes met briefly, but he said nothing.
    "There was a kid," she said, eventually. "Jimmy Green. His parents had lost their house; the family was living with relatives out on Valentine. He and Jason started spending their time together. He rode an old motorcycle and they'd be out in that barn with it for hours, doing I don't know what, 37
    fixing it, I guess. Since he was eight, I'd driven Jason over to Tilden for violin lessons. He'd gotten some grief for it at school, kids calling him names. He'd cried about it some when he was younger, but he loved that music. Used to sit in that wicker chair right over there by the door, his little legs bouncing, twenty minutes before we even got in the car, his eyes begging me to hurry. You know he stood in this room one evening after practice and played five minutes of Mozart for his younger brother and sister? Mozart. Can you believe that? In this living room." She shook