Answered Prayers Read Free Page B

his meeting in Chicago the next day. He glanced at her, and went to change, and a few minutes later, he slipped into bed next to her. It was as though there were an invisible barricade down the middle of their bed. It was a Maginot Line neither of them crossed, except in dire necessity, once every few weeks, or even once a month. Making love was always one of the few times when she felt closer to him, but even that was ephemeral. It was more like a reminder of what they had once shared before they had gone their separate ways, than anything they shared now. Their lovemaking was brief and perfunctory, though pleasant at times. It was a reflection of their reality, not the realization of the dreams they had once shared. It simply was what it was, and nothing more. Remarkably, due to good therapy, she had no sexual problems, despite her father's early travesties. But due to the lack of communication and warmth between her and Alex, their lack of sexuality was sometimes a relief to her.
    And tonight, as he got into bed, Alex rolled over on his side and turned away from her. It was a signal that he wanted nothing more from her that night. They had had dinner together, he told her where he was going the next day. He knew where she would be. And she knew from his schedule that she was going to a business dinner with him the following night, after the funeral. It was all they needed to know about each other, and were able to share. If she needed something more, some gesture of closeness or affection in her life, she would have to get it from the girls, and she knew that. It was what still made her miss Jack all the more. With the marriages they each had respectively, they had needed each other, for coziness and solace and warmth.
    Faith had loved her brother desperately, and she thought it would kill her when he died. It hadn't, but a part of her had wandered like a lost soul since that day, as though it had lost its home. She couldn't tell her daughters or anyone else the kinds of things she had shared with Jack, and always had. There had never been anyone else like him in her life. He had never disappointed her, or failed to be there for her. He had never forgotten to make her laugh, or tell her how much he loved her, and she had done the same for him. He had been the sunshine in her life, the heart, the life preserver she had clung to at times. And now with Alex snoring softly next to her, and her daughters having moved away, Faith quietly turned off the light, and felt silently adrift in a lonely sea.

2
    A LEX HAD ALREADY LEFT FOR C HICAGO WHEN F AITH woke up with the alarm at eight o'clock the next day. The funeral was at eleven, and she had promised to pick up her stepsister in the limousine. Allison was fourteen years older than Faith, and at sixty-one, she seemed a thousand years old to her. She had children who were nearly Faith's age. The oldest of them was forty, and Faith scarcely knew them. They all lived in Canada, in the north of Quebec. Allison had never had any particular bond to her stepmother, nor to Faith. She was already married and had children herself when her father and Faith's mother had married. And her stepsiblings, Faith and Jack, were of no great interest to her.
    Allison and her father weren't close, for the same reason he hadn't been close to Faith. Charles Armstrong had no particular use for girls. He'd been a graduate of West Point, and career army. He'd been forty-nine when he married Faith's mother, and recently retired. And he had treated his stepchildren like West Point cadets. He inspected their rooms, gave them orders, meted out punishments, and had left Jack out in the rain all night once for failing a test at school. Faith had let him in her window and hidden him under her bed, and in the morning they had splashed water on him so his clothes would be wet, and he'd sneaked back outside when the sun came up. Charles hadn't caught on to it, but there would have been hell to pay if he had.
    Their