As Time Goes By Read Free

transformed the library on the first floor into a bedroom for him. At first she had slept in the small den next to it but then had turned it over to the full-time aide and moved to the guest bedroom and bath next to the kitchen on the first floor.
    All of that kept whirling around in Betsy’s mind as she set the cup down on the vanity in the bathroom and turned on the shower.
    Her lawyer, Robert Maynard, would be here within the hour. I don’t know why he’s coming, Betsy thought, with a trace of resentment. I know everything he’s going to say. I know everything to expect. As she slipped off her robe and nightgown she thought of the terrible moment when Maynard had informed her that the grand jury had indicted her for murder. The mug shot, the fingerprinting, the arraignment, the posting of her bail—all of these were fragments of memory that haunted her daily, no matter how hard she tried to banish them.
    She showered, fastened her long, light brown hair in a comb, touched her eyelashes with mascara and applied a dab of blush to her lips. The weather report had said that the day would be sharply cooler. From the closet she selected a long-sleeved hunter-green cashmere shirt and dark brown slacks and put them on her slender body. She had stopped wearing all black four months ago when one of the columnists had commented that the accused murderer of Edward Grant was parading around in widow’s weeds. But she did wear only dark colors, even at home.
    Before she left the room, she looked around. That had become a habit. There had been occasions when during the night Ted had somehow climbed over the locked gate at the bottom of the stairwell and come up here.
    It was easy to tell when that had happened. Every drawer in the chests and night tables had been dumped out. It was as though he was looking for something, Betsy thought now. It was easy for her and Carmen, her daily housekeeper, to put everything back. The one heartbreak was that somehow he must have remembered the combination of the safe in the closet and had taken out the beautiful emerald-and-diamond bracelet he had given her on their first anniversary. She was still hoping that one day she or Carmen would find it, but there was always the worry that Ted had thrown it in the garbage compactor.
    She was tempted to make the bed but knew that Carmen would be coming in any moment. “Leave it for me, Miss Betsy. That’s what I’m here for,” she would always say. But too many years of living with her mother’s daily, relentless shining and polishing and vacuuming had made it impossible for Betsy to ever leave a dish in a sink or a robe on a chair.
    With an unconscious sigh Betsy went downstairs just as Carmen let herself in. A half hour later the chiming of the doorbell signaled that Robert Maynard, Esquire, was standing on her front porch.

4

    A lan Grant, son of the late Edward “Ted” Grant, stared at his former wife, Carly, and tried not to let the burning anger he felt show in his expression. Their four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter had somehow sensed the antagonism in the air and had scurried into their bedroom to get away from it.
    Carly pointed after them. “Will you please tell me how I’m supposed to put a roof over their heads if I get thrown out of here?” she demanded angrily.
    She was a dancer whose Broadway career had come to an abrupt end when she was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver. Now her startlingly lovely face was showing the strain caused by the back pain following the accident and the financial worries that were part of her everyday existence.
    Her ex-husband had no answer for her. In an angry defense, raising his voice, he spat out his reply. “Look, you know that once this trial is over, the money from my father’s estate will be released. And I’ll get plenty. There’s no question Betsy’s going to end up in prison, which also means that the half