The Cure for Modern Life
A Novel
Chapter One
The Kindness of Strangers
Was Matthew Connelly a bad man? He'd never once asked himself that question. Make of it what you will. Of course it would have surprised him to know that, as he walked toward the bridge that night, a little boy was asking the question for him. Because Matthew didn't notice people like this boy, he never wondered what they were thinking about, or if they thought at all. They were as invisible as the ants he'd crushed under his feet as he walked through the streets of Grand Cayman the weekend before, with Amelia and Ben, the happy couple, deliriously grateful to have found each other, all demons of the past behind them -- and all thanks to him. His matchmaking was a good deed from their point of view, pure and simple. To Matthew it was something else entirely, something he didn't dwell on but accepted as another delicate operation in an extremely complex job.
The boy watching Matthew, who gave his name as Timmy or Jacob or Danny, depending on the situation, was only ten years old, but his mother said he was closer to forty ... read full excerpt from The Cure for Modern Life, A Novel ebook
