Pin Read Free

as anything but “the doctor.”
    Bored with the falling snow and the continuous traffic of skiers, I turned away from the window again just as Ursula walked across the room, dressed only in her bra. Her ass bounced ripples down the backs of her legs. It was her way of seizing Pin’s complete attention. She was so jealous of our relationship lately, always trying to get me to cut down my discussions with Pin. I knew she was doing the same thing now, pretending to have come down to get a book. I watched her deliberately skim through a few, seemingly oblivious to our presence.
    Actually, my presence wouldn’t have mattered. Ursula and I have never thought anything about standing naked before each other. We did it as kids and we did it as we grew up. In a sense we participated in each other’s development. I remember staying awake one night with her, both of us staring at her naked chest to see if we could detect her breasts growing. She fell asleep before I did. I thought I saw something happen, but it was so quick and I was a little bleary-eyed by then, so I wouldn’t swear to it. I told her about it, though, just so she’d feel bad about falling asleep like that.
    I use to stare at her a lot, fascinated by our geneticand blood relationship. I wanted to see what of myself I could find in her.
    Ursula has worked in the local library ever since she graduated high school. It’s just a little hick-town library, nothing spectacular; but Ursula found a second home there. I used to make a great deal of fun of that, but I’ve learned to temper my jokes some. For the most part, she ignored them anyway or told me I was jealous. What a laugh. Jealous of that! Even when she said it, she said it with half a heart. She knew I could have had my choice of almost any profession I wanted. I was always a straight-A student in school. It was just that when father and mother died in the car accident and left us all that money, the house and father’s lucrative investments, well, I just didn’t see the sense in doing anything but what I always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to write poetry, mainly a great modern epic poem, a kind of American “Beowulf.”
    I spent most of my time working on it. At night, Pin, Ursula and I sat in the living room and I read them the day’s work. I have a high regard for Pin’s opinion of poetry, and Ursula does have a good deal of sensitivity for literature, probably because of her job in the library. Both of them always said I read well. I would get a fire going in the fireplace and we’d all sit around sipping coffee after dinner, and then I’d read what I had written. Ursula’s eyes always exploded whenever I hit something she thought was “marvelous.” She had that word, “marvelous.” Pin simply nodded silently at good things. It wasn’t a very emphatic nod, just a slight movement of his head. I always looked up quickly from the paper when I read a part I thought he’d appreciate, and sure enough, there would be thatslight nod. I guess being so close to one another over the years had made us very sensitive to each other’s reactions. At times I felt we were almost a part of one another.
    Ursula had a “wisp of a body.” At least that’s the way Mrs. Martin referred to it, but Mrs. Martin was so stout that anyone would have a “wisp of a body” standing next to her. She came once a week to clean the house. It took her a long time, almost all day, to do the place. For the most part, I would stay upstairs and Pin would stay in his room behind the garage. She never went into his room. He wouldn’t have tolerated any strangers coming into it. He was so emphatic on that point that I had to actually lock his room from the outside. She asked me about it only once. I told her in very strong, definite terms not to worry herself ever about that room. She shrugged and forgot about it. When she