Black Water Read Free

as
requested.
    One
of the doctors said exercise, a strict regimen, another of the doctors said an
operation as soon as possible, in some cases the child doesn't outgrow it and
in the interim the weaker eye may become permanently atrophied, and Mommy and
Grandma Ross (Mommy's mommy) wanted the exercises, give the exercises a chance,
and there was a nice therapist, a young woman, wearing eyeglasses herself
optimistic about correcting Kelly's problem but weeks passed, months, Daddy could
scarcely bear to look at his darling little girl sometimes, he loved her so,
wanted to spare her hurt, harm, any sort of discomfort, and what irony, Artie
Kelleher complained, laughing, angry, throwing his arms open wide as if to
invite, as in a TV program the talk-show host so invites, an audience of
anonymous millions to share in his bemusement, yes in his resentment too, his
bafflement—what irony, things are going boom! boom ! boom ! in my business, like riding
an escalator to the top floor, expansive-economy times these early years of the
1960s in building, construction, investments, you name it it's going up, what
irony, my business life is absolutely great and my private life, my
life-at-home— I can't control!
    Speaking
reasonably trying not to raise his voice (for, sometimes, Kelly was within
earshot) so Mommy tried to respond in the same way though her voice trembling,
hands trembling, you would not notice perhaps except for the beauty of her
hands and her rings: the diamond cluster, the jade in its antique gold setting:
as Daddy pointed out he was simply looking ahead, suppose the exercises don't
work, it certainly doesn't seem that the exercises are working does it, all
right use your imagination Madelyn look ahead to when she goes to school, you know
damned well the other kids will tease her, they'll think she's a freak or
something, do you want that? is that what you want? so Mommy
burst into tears, No! no ! of course not! no ! why do you
say such things to me!
    So
one day, it was a weekday but Artie Kelleher took the morning off, the elder
Kellehers drove their little girl into the city, a forty-minute trip from the
suburban village of Gowanda Heights, Westchester County, New York, and there in
Beth Israel Hospital on leafy East End Avenue, there, at last, Elizabeth Anne
Kelleher's "bad" eye was corrected by surgery, and recovery was
swift, if not precisely painless as promised; and forever afterward the eye,
the eyes, the girl, were, as all outer signs indicated, normal.

 

    " — lost, senator? this road is so—"
    "I said don't worry,
Kelly!"—a sidelong glance, a tight smile puckering the corners of
blood-veined eyes—"we'll get there, and we'll get there on time."
    As liquid sloshed over the rim of the
plastic cup and onto Kelly Kelleher's leg before she could prevent it.
    The Senator had been among the three
leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988; out of
political prudence he had withdrawn his name, released his delegates
in favor of his old friend the Massachusetts governor.
    In
turn, Dukakis had asked The Senator to be his running mate on the Democratic
ticket. The Senator had politely declined.
    Of
course, there was always the next presidential election, even the election
beyond that. The Senator, no longer young, was certainly not
old: eleven years younger than George Bush.
    A
man in the prime of his career —you might say.
    Kelly
Kelleher envisioned herself working for The Senator's presidential campaign. First,
though, she would work for his nomination at the Democratic national
convention. In the intimacy of the bouncing Toyota, her senses glazed by the
day's excitement, it was possible for Kelly Kelleher, who rarely indulged in
fantasies, to give herself up to this one.
    The
evening before, as if anticipating this adventure, Kelly had taken time, when
so rarely she took time, to file and polish her fingernails. A
pale pink-coral-bronze. Subdued, tasteful. To match her