Edge by M. E. Kerr Page B

that?”
    â€œThis will always be home,” Drew said. “Did I tell you what dad’s giving us for a wedding present? Four of the ten acres he owns up on the lake. Neat, huh?”
    â€œThat’s four years away,” Tory said.
    The Fourth of July was at full pitch, loud and spectacular in the sky above them.
    â€œDad’s not developing his six acres, either. He and Mother will build on three and save three for the grandkids. We’ll have our own compound.”
    â€œDo you love me, Drew?”
    â€œNo,” he said, “I’m marrying you out of habit.”
    â€œThat’s not funny.”
    â€œOf course I love you. Who do I love if I don’t love you?”
    â€œWho do I love,” she said, “if I don’t love you?”
    â€œExactly,” he said.
    â€œNo, not exactly.” She started to tell him. … She was going to begin by asking him if he was ever curious what she did those evenings he spent watching sports on TV or going to ball games.
    She tried to think of another way to start off, a way that would not put him on the defensive. Nothing he had done had anything to do with Horacio.
    She was almost ready to do it, but in the pause he said, “That land’s worth about thirty thousand an acre. In four more years, it’ll be worth a lot more. We’ve really got it made, Tory!”
    Rockets burst overhead and behind them the band began to play “Oh, Susannah.”
    One day a white rose was waiting for Tory when she came back from the club.
    So was her mother.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Mrs. King said, “but the card fell out of the tissue paper, and I read it.”
    The card said, The last line of LITOC from your H.
    LITOC stood for the novel by García Márquez.
    â€œWell?” said Mrs. King. “What does it mean?”
    â€œI’ll have to look it up,” said Tory, who’d never have to look it up to remember it.
    â€œYou know what I’m asking you. What is this all about, dear? He calls himself ‘ Your H.’?”
    â€œWhen you were in love with that Lasher, what was it all about?” Tory asked.
    â€œTory, Richard Lasher was the son of the warden. He wasn’t the son of someone inside. He was of our own kind, not an ethnic. He went to middle school and high school here, and we all knew the family.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you what Lasher was about. I asked you what it was about.”
    Mrs. King drew a deep breath.
    She sat down on her daughter’s bed.
    She said finally, “When did all this happen?”
    â€œIf you get her in trouble, your life will be ruined,” said Maria Vegas.
    â€œI don’t touch her.”
    â€œSure, and I’m that blonde Madonna from the MTV.”
    â€œI don’t. We’re going away, Mama.”
    â€œWhat does your father say?”
    â€œTo go. To marry her.”
    â€œHe said that?”
    â€œHe said when he fell in love and married it was the best thing of his life.”
    His mother blushed and bit away a little smile. “There’s more to come,” she said. “It’s not over, tell him.”
    â€œAnd he thanked me for bringing her there to meet him, for asking him his opinion.”
    â€œWhat did he think, you’d leave your own father out?”
    While she waits for him to come home this night, Mrs. King is thinking of things she has gone over and over in her head all day.
    She thinks of the greeting card he always presents to her three times a year: on Valentine’s Day, on their anniversary, and on her birthday. She finds one propped up against the water glass at her place, at the breakfast table. He is already at work by then, since they never eat together in the morning, and she immediately thanks him, telephoning his office to do so.
    The cards are the big, mushy sort with words on them he would never dream of speaking.
    She thinks, too, of his habit of telling her he feels like