Read Online Bitter Sweet by Lavyrle Spencer - Free Book Online

Mike’s wife. They lived in the woods not fifty feet up the shoreline.
    ‘Looks like it hum.’
    She slapped him with a bread pan, then plopped a loaf into it. ‘I ain’t got time for hair fussing and you know it.
    ‘You had your breakfast?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘What? Glazed doughnuts?’
    ‘Ma, you’re meddling again.’
    She stuck the loaf in the oven. ‘What else are mothers for? God didn’t make no commandment named “thou shalt not meddle,” so I meddle. That’s what mothers are for.’
    ‘I thought they were for selling fish licences and booking charters. ‘
    ‘If you want that leftover sausage, eat it.’ She nodded towards an iron skillet on top of the stove and began wiping the flour off the oilcloth with the edge of her hand.
    He lifted a cover and found two nearly cold Polish sausages - one for him, one for Mike as usual - picked one up with his fingers and leaned against the stove, eating it, pondering.
    ‘Ma, you remember Maggie Pearson?’
    ‘Of course I remember Maggie Pearson. My hair ain’t kinked up that tight. What brought her up?’
    ‘She called me last night.’
    For the first time since he’d entered the room his mother stopped moving. She turned from the sink and looked back over her shoulder.
    ‘She called you? For what?’
    ‘Just to say hello.’
    ‘She lives out west someplace, doesn’t she?’
    ‘ Seattle . ‘
    ‘She called you from Seattle just to say hello?’
    Eric shrugged.
    ‘She’s widowed, ain’t she?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Ah, that’s it then.’
    ‘What’s it then?’
    ‘She always was sweet on you. Sniffin’ around, that’s what she’s doing. Widows get to sniffin’ when they need a man.’
    ‘Oh, Ma, for cryin’ out loud, Nancy was right beside me when she called.’
    ‘When who called?’ Mike interrupted, arriving in the middle of the exchange. He had thirty pounds and two years on his brother, plus a full brown beard.
    ‘His old flame,’ Anna Severson answered.
    ‘She’s not my old flame!’
    ‘Who?’ Mike repeated, going straight to the cupboard for a coffee cup and filling it at the stove.
    ‘That Pearson girl, the one he used to trade spit with on that back porch right there when he thought the rest of us had gone to bed.’
    ‘Oh, Judas,’ Eric groaned.
    “Maggie Pearson?’ Mike’s eyebrows shot up.
    ‘Vera and Leroy Pearson’s daughter- you remember her,’ Anna clarified.
    Testing the steaming coffee with his lips, Mike grinned at his brother. ‘Hooey! You and old Maggie used to nearly set that old daybed on fire back in high school.’
    ‘If I’d’ve known I was going to take all this flak I wouldn’t have told you two.’
    “So what did she want?’ Mike found the leftover sausage and helped himself.
    ‘I don’t know. She and Glenda Holbrook kept in touch, and she just...’ Eric shrugged. ‘Called, that’s all. Said hi, how y’ doing, are you married, you got kids, that sort of thing.’
    ‘Sniffin’,’ Anna put in again from the sink, her back to the boys.
    ‘Ma!’
    ‘Yeah, I heard you. Just to say hi.’
    ‘She said hi to both of you, too, but I don’t know why the hell I bother.’
    ‘Mmm... something’s missing here,’ Mike speculated.
    ‘Well, when you figure out what it is, I’m sure you’ll let me know,’ Eric told his brother sarcastically.
    Out in the office the radio crackled and Jerry Joe’s voice came on.
    “Mary Deare to base, you up there, Grandma?’
    Eric, closest to the office, went out to answer. ‘This is Eric. Go ahead, Jerry Joe.’
    ‘Momin’, Cap’n. Our
seven o’clock
parties are here. Just sent ‘em up to the office. Nick and me could use some help down here.’
    ‘Be right there.’
    Eric glanced through the open office door and saw a group of men crossing the blacktop from the dock, heading in to register, pay and buy licences - Ma’s department. Beyond the fish-cleaning tables he saw Tim Rooney, their handyman, directing a boat that was being backed into the water