The Drafter
Page 45
“The usual.”
How many times, Peri wondered, have I said the same thing to hide the embarrassment of not knowing what’s going on?
Heart aching, Peri helped her mother sit up straight, trying not to notice how light she was as she turned her to the huge mirror that was there to try to make the small room look larger. Her mother’s chin was high, her anger that she didn’t know what her usual was obvious.
“A style it is,” Peri said, reaching for the soft brush beside the bed. “We can skip the wash if you like. Your hair is in wonderful condition. You take very good care of it. Is it getting too long? Would you like me to schedule a cut next week?”
“If you would,” her mother said, her thin, age-spotted fingers coming up to play with the ends. Peri remembered it as jet-black as hers was, but now it was pale, a hint of the original, a whisper, like her mother herself. She was looking vacantly at their reflection, seeing something other than what was there.
Peri slowly brushed her mother’s hair, taking what she had today and not letting regret color it. “Has it been a busy week?” she asked, focusing on how the hair felt slipping through her hands as she cared for her mother.
“About the same,” she answered, voice distant.
She doesn’t know, doesn’t remember.
“Family?” Peri prompted, hoping for something. A story. A recollection. Anything.
“Oh, yes,” her mother said, brightening. “Did you know my daughter is studying to be a dancer at the Met?”
“Is that so?” Peri’s chin trembled, but she smiled as she ran a lock of hair around her finger, trying to get it to stay. “That’s wonderful. I always wanted to be a dancer.”
“She’s very good. Very graceful.” Her mother smiled, pride lighting her face. “So much more graceful than I am. And she’ll do it. That girl has more grit than anyone I know. I don’t know where she gets it.”
I got it from you, Peri thought, blinking fast.
“I’m so proud of her,” her mother said wistfully. “I wish I could have told her.”
“I’m sure she knows,” Peri said, finding peace in the moment because that was all she had, all any of them had. “I’m sure she knows.”
KIM HARRISON is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Hollows series. She was born in Detroit and has lived most of her life within an easy drive of it. When not at work on her latest project, she spends her time landscaping her new/old Victorian home or out on the links with her mom. Her current vices include good chocolate and exquisite sushi.
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Kim Harrison
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First Gallery Books hardcover edition September 2015
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Interior design by Jaime Putorti
Jacket photograph of pocket watch © collaborationJS/Arcangel Images; landscape © Robert Jones/Arcangel Images
Author photograph by Myra Klarman Photography
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrison, Kim.
The drafter / Kim Harrison. —First Gallery Books hardcover edition.
pages ; cm. —(The Peri Reed Chronicles)
I. Title.
PS3608.A78355D73 2015
813’.6—dc23
2015010309
ISBN 978-1-5011-0869-3
ISBN 978-1-5011-0883-9 (ebook)