Read Online Bridge To Happiness by Jill Barnett - Free Book Online

the electric garage door closing.
    “G-Mo! G-Mo! Look what I made for you!” Miranda came running across the courtyard from the open door to the garage, followed by her daughters-in-law Renee and Keely , then her own Molly.
    The kitchen was suddenly chaos, all of them talking at once, shopping bags on the counters, a couple of long loaves of fresh Boudin’s bread and two bottles of Chianti suddenly in her arms, her granddaughter jumping up and down and tugging on her shirt, trying to tell her everything they had done in the last three hours.
    “I think we got everything from the list.” Renee said. “Let’s see . . . You have the wine. I gave you the bread.” She looked up. Did we forget the garlic?”
    “No. I put it in the cart. It’s there somewhere. Here it is.” Keely handed it to her.
    “Oh. We couldn’t find the nine-layer cake so we got chocolate banana from Henshaw’s .” Renee closed the refrigerator door. “Was the baby okay?”
    “He’s fine.”
    “Neiman’s has the most beautiful suede jackets, mom. You have to get one. Look at Keely’s shoes,” Molly insisted. “They are to-die-for.”
    March glanced at Molly. “What did you do to your hair?”
    There was utter silence. The words had slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them.
    “I had it layered last week, Mother.” Molly shook her head defiantly and her deep auburn hair, once sleek and gorgeous, went every which way possible.
    Keely checked her watch. “Two minutes,” she said to Molly and Renee. “You owe me lunch.”
    March was at the kitchen island…feeling like one. The girls had bet on her reaction, which really should have been funny. She should have been laughing, but it stung a little instead. “It looks nice,” March lied, thinking her daughter looked as if she had a run-in with a lawnmower. “Change is good.”
    For a few seconds no one spoke, so March opened a nearby drawer and took out the foil, which she would have rather chewed on than stand there in the telling, heavy silence of generation gaps between women.
    Miranda sidled up to her and tugged on her shirt. “I made this for you in art class, G-Mo. It’s a bird-feeder. Look. Look.”
    For one brief moment March wished Molly were still six and their relationship were simpler. She squatted down eye-level with Scott’s daughter. The bird-feeder she held was large, made from a milk jug, and awkwardly covered with silk leaves and sparkles. “Wow. Did you really make this?”
    Miranda nodded.
    “Let’s go fill it.” On the backside of the feeder, written in sparkles, was G-MO . In a strange new world reduced to initials J-Lo and BFF, grandmother simply became G-Mo.
    “I really didn’t do everything,” Miranda admitted quietly. “Mrs. Burke helped me with the sparkles.” She looked up to March for approval. “But I did all the leaves.”
    “You know, I think I love the leaves the very best.”
    Miranda’s whole face brightened. March could encourage her granddaughter and not feel as if something she said opened wounds or created new ones. She wondered if Molly would take a bet on what she said to Miranda. Somewhere in their mother-daughter lifetime, she and Molly had become real adversaries. “Come along. You can help me find the perfect spot for this most wonderful of birdfeeders.”
    A ten foot ficus tree she had grown from only knee high dominated one corner of the courtyard. There were other birdfeeders in different shapes, along with all those old wedding wind chimes hanging from the painted beams and lathe. March hung the bird-feeder on one of the ficus branches. “What do you think? Here?”
    “It’s perfectly perfect, G-Mo.”
    March stepped down from the brick planter and stood back. “I believe this is my favorite gift ever.”
    Miranda melted against her and they stood there like that, the fugal sounds of the city outside, overhead, the tinkling of a few wind chimes with a whisper of a breeze that skirted the courtyard, young