Excerpt from Winterkill by Karen Wunderman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Not really. A lot's happened in ten years. He lost his teaching job, I forget when, maybe six or seven years ago, because he refused to go underground and the NEA found out that he was a --"

He looked at Nicky to see if she was paying attention.

"- you know, a member. Then he and Paula split up, and he got involved in some art dealing scheme or some other bullshit, I don't know. Frankly, I couldn't follow all of it."

Ben heaved another helping of peas onto his plate. He passed them to Nicky, but she was too busy wagging her finger at him to take the bowl.

"What's your problem?" he asked, afraid she'd been paying more attention than he'd thought.

"You said that word, the bs word."

"Oh, that. Yeah, well, once in a while, you know, it slips out." He shot her a capricious grin, relieved that was all she'd been paying attention to. "Meanwhile, are you going to eat your damned peas or do I have to surreptitiously insinuate them into the multitudinous orifices of your visage?"

She screwed up her face-she didn't think she wanted him to do that-and popped a couple of the mealy green orbs into her mouth.

"Good. I was hoping you'd see it my way."

Kate watched this exchange between Ben and Nicky, still looking for signs that he was all right-that it was all right, everything. It was so unnerving, never being sure how his mood would swing next.

"So what did you end up telling Jon?"

"Oh, I don't know. I don't suppose I was much help. He's got a real problem, but I don't think he really wanted my advice. I think he just wanted someone to talk to, someone he thought might understand."

He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his thick hair, leaving it standing out at rakish angles, on top and on the sides, making him look like a crazed man. Nicky clapped her hand over her mouth and giggled, same as she did every time he performed this trademark maneuver, and Kate waved her napkin at Nicky, trying hard to keep from laughing herself.

Ben took the hint, glad somewhere deep inside to be part of this family joke, and smoothed down those errant strands of hair. He sighed deeply. "I'll tell you, Kate, I've never been so convinced that moving up here was the right thing to do as I was today talking to Jonathan. Not that things can't get crooked up here, but life just seems so much less complicated. Peaceful, you know?"

Kate nodded in quiet agreement, a faint smile on her lips, but with a fleeting look of doubt, of hesitation, as if there were something she wanted to say but couldn't quite bring herself to confront. It didn't matter. As long as Ben was happy.

"You know, he and Paula are divorced now," Ben said.

"So you said. We saw that coming even when we were in New York-you know, when things started getting rough. I never thought they'd get through it together. Besides, it sounds like Jonathan's been through some big changes."

"He said he might like to come up and visit us for a while. Maybe until things settle down a bit with this problem he's got."

Kate looked at him questioningly, to read his feelings in his face, but she couldn't. "What did you tell him? We can't say no, can we? I mean, he is one of our oldest friends."

"I sure would like to say no. The idea of him being up here scares the hell out of me. I just get a bad feeling about it. But I don't know, maybe it would be okay. It's been a long time."

They ate without speaking, accompanied by the sounds of stainless steel on stoneware and the gentle clinking of the wind chimes on the back porch.

Ben loosened his belt one notch and pushed back from the table, picking up the newspaper off the counter behind him. "So what do you think about our disappearing Gunn family?"

From Winterkill by Karen Wunderman. Copyright 2002 Karen Wunderman, all rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.