Read Online Friday Mornings at Nine by Marilyn Brant - Free Book Online Page A

offered it to their children.
    Shelby gamely took one and put hers on a small plate. “Thanks, Dad.” She sat down at the table and nibbled on the corners.
    Veronica took one, too, kissed her father on the forehead and ate her slice over the sink, bits of sugar and cinnamon clinging to her lip gloss and reminding Jennifer of a little girl with fairy-princess makeup.
    “Want some?” Michael asked Jennifer, his voice hopeful.
    She nodded and took a piece, even though she wasn’t hungry. Even though, after eighteen years of marriage, he should know how rarely she ate breakfast. But Michael so wanted to please “his girls,” and she didn’t want to disappoint him.
    “Well, I’ve gotta go.” He squeezed Veronica, pecked the top of Shelby’s head, kissed Jennifer on the cheek and grabbed his briefcase and a slice of toast for the road. “Hope you women have a great day.”
    “Bye, Dad!” the girls called out in chorus.
    “See you tonight, Michael,” Jennifer said a few beats later.
    And though he’d already reached the door, he peered back over his shoulder at the three of them and grinned. “Love you all.”
    “Love you, too,” cried the girls.
    Jennifer didn’t answer. What about ME do you love? Always, she wondered this.
    She sighed as she heard him start his car and pull out of the driveway. She understood instinctively what he loved about their daughters, but he’d never answered the question sufficiently enough for her. When she worked up the nerve to ask, he’d always mumble something about how “he sensed her quiet cleverness” or how “she navigated their family waters with astute tranquility.” But, aside from a nod at her intellect and her ability to remain calm in a crisis, these weren’t concrete qualities—qualities that by themselves would or should inspire “love.”
    Rather, his words had the ring of a line from one of his poems. Embellished and a touch contrived. Though, to be fair, Michael proved himself to be a good husband, a good father, a good man. Only problem was, he dwelled in a wholly different universe from hers (and not just in his bizarre preference for Macs over PCs). He always had. But, then, that was what she’d been looking for when she got married.
    Jennifer checked the digital clock above the stove. “School bus,” she announced, glad their district was small enough that both her daughters could still leave at the same time on the same bus. That the junior high and the high school were right next to each other. It made Veronica’s transition to the “big building” a bit easier this year.
    Veronica, who seemed to be filling out a little more every day (or maybe her shirt and her jeans were just tighter?), was busy downing a tall glass of milk to accompany her second piece of toast. She rolled her hazel eyes and sniggered. “ Seriously, Mom, we can tell time.” Self-possessed and just a tad condescending, she directed a mocking grin at her sister. “Bet I can beat’cha out there.”
    Shelby, with the poise of a duchess and the long-suffering sigh of a younger sibling, glanced at Jennifer and smirked. “You know she only says that, Mom, because she thinks if we race I won’t notice she’s wearing my leather sandals.” She pointed a triumphant index finger at Veronica, who’d hidden her feet behind the kitchen counter. “Ha. Caught you!”
    Veronica giggled. “You said I could wear them if I let you wear my black tee. Remember?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “Yeah. How quickly we forget.” Veronica brushed some crumbs into the sink. “So…race ya anyway?”
    Shelby feigned a pensive look, then shoved her chair back, jumped to her feet with a squeal and pushed past her older sister to the door. They somehow snatched their backpacks and their hoodies and were on the porch with a shout of “Bye, Mom” in stereo before Jennifer could even make it to the window to watch them.
    Snorting with laughter, her daughters sprinted toward their bus stop. A few leafy