A Morning Like This Read Free Page A

Roche.” It sounded louder the second
     time. In desperation, David found the button marked DELETE and punched it hard.
    “Deleting. Deleting,”
said the liquid crystal display.
    The blinking red light stopped just as Braden came barefoot into the room. David reeled away from the phone machine. “Hey,
     sport,” he said and in his own ears his voice sounded too booming, too cheery.
    Braden opened the cabinet and pulled out a box of Honeycomb cereal. “Morning, Dad.” He stood on tiptoe and rattled the stack
     of dishes, trying to pull out a bowl.
    “Here.” David reached over the boy’s head and shifted things so Braden could get what he needed. “Let me help you with that.”
    “You eating breakfast, too?”
    “No,” David said. “I’m running late. I’d better wake your mother up and get to work.”
    “Don’t forget my baseball game this afternoon.”
    “I won’t forget. It’s a big one, huh?”
    “If we can beat Food Town, we can beat anybody.”
    David scrubbed his son’s blond hair until it poked from his head like the spines of a porcupine. “Brush your hair before you
     get to school,” he teased, doing his best to be lighthearted. “Your mother will never forgive me if you don’t.”
    Your mother will never forgive me. Of course she wouldn’t. Never
.
    Not if she found out about Susan Roche
.
    David walked into the bedroom and stopped beside their bed. He stared down at Abby’s face—at her dark, mussed, Meg Ryan hair—his
     heart tightening. He reached and stopped, his hand poised above her shoulder. He swallowed hard, steeling himself for what
     the next moment might bring, and the next, and the next. “Ab—” he whispered, jostling her. “Hey. Wake up.”
    She moaned into her pillow, gave him a sleepy smile and, first thing, before her eyes had barely opened, reached her arms
     to encircle his neck. “Please don’t tell me it’s already time.”
    “Okay, I won’t tell you.”
    “Is the coffee ready?”
    “I turned it on before Brewster and I went out.”
    “Are you leaving?”
    A nod. “Braden’s up. He’s eating breakfast.”
    “Good.” She smiled again as he bent to kiss her and if he seemed subdued about something she didn’t act like she noticed.
     She pulled his head down to hers once more, kissed him again. “Last night was fun.
Real
fun.”
    He hesitated, a slight moment just long enough for her to narrow her eyes at him. “I’ve got to shower,” he said.
    She watched him, her smile gone, and propped herself on one elbow. “David? Is something wrong?”
    “Wrong? No? Why would anything be wrong?”
    “I don’t know. You just seem…I don’t know. Preoccupied.”
    “I’m late.” He pulled away from her. “That’s all.”
    He left her and began rattling around in the bathroom. He showered, dropping the soap on the tile with a resounding thud.
     He shaved and buzzed his battery-powered Crest Spinbrush over his teeth. He dressed without coming out of their huge walk-in
     closet.
    “Honey?” she called past the suit coats and shoes and tailored shirts. “Are you sure nothing’s the matter?”
    “I’m sure,” he lied.
    When at last he found the courage to reappear, he grabbed his keys with purpose from the table, managing to depart without
     so much as a perfunctory kiss for either of his family members. “I’ll meet you at Braden’s game,” he called as he took the
     porch steps two at a time, feeling like he was running away.
    If the minutes before David left for work seemed excruciating, the hours he spent trying to focus on business proved even
     worse. He helped one confused teller balance her till. He listened to a couple concerned about the time it was taking to process
     their home loan. He wandered around in the lobby, smiling at customers he knew, shaking hands with colleagues, talking about
     the bank’s newest marketing plan to open two new branches in Wyoming.
    But he couldn’t focus. The first chance he got, he retreated