A Slender Thread Read Free Page A

navigated through downtown Portsmouth and onto Pleasant Street. Margot stared out the window, stunned, barely taking in the passing scenery. Portsmouth was an old city, a Colonial settlement, the home of once-prominent ship captains. The Portsmouth harbor was still a working port. Arriving ships bearing loads of salt for the soon-to-be-snow-covered New England roads would depart heaped with loads of scrap metal, the chopped remains of the rusty vehicles that were victims of the salted highways. Red tugboats were moored along the city wharf, rugged and ready to guide the ships through the mouth of the river and pull them to the docks.
    The town was filled with stately eighteenth-century mansions, charming clapboard houses, restaurants, and shops, along with a few worn-out taverns that refused to transform themselves to be like their more fashionable twenty-first-century neighbors. Eventually Lacey turned onto Route 1B, the road that would take them out to Lacey and Alex’s home in New Castle.
    New Castle, an island reached by bridges and causeways, was a gem of a town, a village really. Since the death of their parents many years before, Margot had been coming to Lacey’s house every Thanksgiving. Lacey, her husband, Alex, and their twin daughters had included Margot in many of their family holidays, though since she’d lived with Oliver, she came less frequently. Thanksgiving was the only holiday Oliver spent with his grown daughter and Margot thought he should have some time alone with her, thus the separate trips.
    Margot read the card a second time. “Lacey, this can’t be true.” Margot swallowed and cleared her throat. Her mouth was dry. She didn’t know what to say. The irony of being inarticulate made her feel worse.
    â€œWe’ve spent the entire fall going down to Boston to see specialists.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?”
    â€œI didn’t think it was serious. Not at first anyway. We weren’t even sure . . . until last week.” Lacey was speaking very carefully. “Alex doesn’t want to believe them.”
    â€œThe doctors?”
    â€œHe wants to see more . . . more specialists. Like someone else can fix it. Like it’s a business problem. And he can find”—she swallowed—“the solution.”
    They passed the Portsmouth Naval Prison, a huge, gray, decaying monster of a building across the Piscataqua River on their left, abandoned since the 1970s. Since then it had remained empty and silent, but for the rats and seagulls. “He thinks different . . . doctors might come to a different conclusion.”
    Margot sat very still, almost forgetting to breathe. “Maybe he’s right.”
    â€œHe’s not,” Lacey said sharply. Her voice pitched higher. “The top neurologists aren’t going to lie to me.” Her hands gripped the wheel of the car, the beautiful white fingers that loved the feel of yarn, that savored the softness of the fibers she wove into elegant designs. In the near-winter light the skin of her fingers seemed almost translucent, as if the very bones might show through.
    â€œIf it’s such a rare disease,” Margot said, trying to think calmly, “another doctor might have another opinion. Maybe some sort of treatment.”
    â€œAs usual, I’m the only one in this . . . family to face things.”
    â€œI just think Alex may have a point.”
    â€œYou’re as softheaded as he is.” Lacey, almost always even-tempered, was nearly shouting.
    â€œLacey, I only mean . . .” Margot tried to push away the growing fear inside her. Her mind clattered with questions. She felt like she was sinking underwater, being pulled down into darkness where she could no longer see or hear.
    â€œI’ve seen many doctors. Not just one.”
    â€œStill . . .”
    â€œThey have . . .” Again she appeared to search for a word. “The pictures. They have pictures