Never Love a Stranger by Harold Robbins

would have another whack at it. Sometimes it would work—maybe more times than less. I know there were some cases I couldn’t do anything for, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. It was because I didn’t understand them, was too stupid to see what was wrong. It was my ignorance that was to blame, not theirs.”
    He laughed a little and raised a glass of wine to his lips. “There speaks Martin Cabell,
    the greatest psychiatrist in die world, explaining his failures in the light of reason. Or maybe it’s because I have a feeling of inferiority myself.”
    He took another sip of the wine and looked at them. As he spoke, his face had lost its intensity, had relaxed and grown soft, younger. Suddenly he smiled. It was the same old smile—warm and fresh and young. “Old friends,” he thought contentedly. “The same as before. They haven’t changed. You can still talk and they will listen.” The world seemed right again, and for the first time since he had come back, he felt at home.
    PART TWO
    Chapter One ‌

    D URING the days that followed at the hospital I learned a great deal about my uncle and his family. He had a job as a salesman for a dress house downtown, and they had been living in New York for the past ten years. They had a fairly comfortable five-room apartment on Washington Heights.
    His wife was a quiet, gentle woman whom I worshipped almost on sight. She would never by word or action ever show herself to be thinking unkindly of me. She would come to the hospital every day bearing a little gift of fruit or cookies or a book to while away the time. She would stay as long as she could and then leave. Sometimes she would bring my cousins with her. They were two little girls about eight and ten years old.
    At first the girls were prone to regard me with awe and a certain mixture of friendliness and shyness. Later, as they became more accustomed to me, they would kiss my cheek as they came in and left.
    Morris and Bertha Cain and their children, Esther and Irene, were the first real family I had ever had, and if I felt strange to them or they to me, it was easily understandable. Family relations that seemed normal to most people were only strangely intricate to me. I could never figure out the problem of who was whose cousin, and second and first cousins had me completely licked. But we got along.
    I left the hospital near the end of September and stepped right into a new world. Uncle Morris had a small Buick car and he drove me home. He had called for me alone. Upon arriving in the apartment, I found out they were planning a little party for for me. Aunt Bertha had baked a cake, and I met lots of other relatives of ours. When they had all gone I was shown to the room that would be mine. It used to be Irene’s room (she was the elder of the two) but she now shared the room with Esther or Essie, as they called the younger. My clothes were already hung in the closet, and the place seemed very warm and friendly to me.
    I remember Uncle Morris saying: “This is your room, Frankie.” And opening the door, he motioned to me and I crossed the threshold, he and Aunt Bertha following me. The children had already been put to bed. I looked around it. The first thing I noticed was a small framed picture of a young woman on the dresser.
    Aunt Bertha saw me looking at it. “That’s your mother, Frankie. It’s the only picture we have of her and I thought you would like to have it.”
    I went over to look at it. She was about nineteen when the picture was taken. Her hair was combed down with a bun tied in back as was the fashion in the days when the picture was taken. Her lips were half smiling and a reflection of hidden laughter seemed to dance in her eyes. Her chin was firm, rounded but strong—too strong perhaps for eyes and lips like hers. I looked at it for a few minutes.
    Uncle Morris said: “You look very much like her, Frankie. Your eyes are the same colour, and the shape of your mouth is so much like hers it