Read Online Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Redfearn - Free Book Online Page B

the past year, I’ve learned to interpret my dad’s speech like a translator, and the language is no longer foreign.
    My excitement grows with my dad’s as he tells me about the granddaughter of Lucille Montagne, a woman who bought a set of the Chinese dioramas around the same time Frank Lloyd Wright bought his.
    “The granddaughter’s been out of the country, but she’s sure her grandmother still had them when she died.”
    “So where are they now?”
    “She thinks in storage.”
    “And she has the one we’re looking for?”
    “She’s not sure, but maybe. Her grandmother had four of them. I described the one we’re looking for, and she asked if it looked like the woman was falling down the steps.”
    “That’s it! That’s the one.”
    His smile resonates through the phone.
    I turn onto the twisty-turny street that leads to our neighborhood. The ocean sprawls behind me. On my right, houses burrow into the hills. Below, on the left, is the wedge of golden canyon I drove through minutes before.
    “When will she know?”
    “She said she’d check next week.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “The Bay area.”
    I pull onto the road that will take me to my home.
    “I wanted to get it before your birthday.”
    “Close enough.”
    The search for my gift has occupied my dad since his stroke. It’s been a godsend, his days filled with the quest and forcing him to recover. Each day, for hours, he struggles through web searches and pecks out e-mails with his one good hand, all to find our missing piece.
    “I think I’ll call again tomorrow. Maybe she can go earlier so we can celebrate tomorrow night at dinner.”
    My heart swells as it always does when I talk with my dad. No one will ever love me the way he does.
    I pull into our driveway, and the garage door slides up so I can pull my Land Rover in beside Gordon’s Cayenne.
    “Sayonara, Sister,” my dad says.
    “Adios, Amigo,” I answer. It’s been our signoff for thirty years.
    I click the garage door closed behind me, but stay in the car, the conversation with my dad radiating hope, allowing me to believe somehow I’ll find a way to make things right.
    My phone buzzes. I’ve been texted. “I have an idea how to solve our problem. Dinner on Thursday and I’ll explain. Xoxo, Jeffrey.”
    My heart pounds, and I stare at the letters until they blur. When the panel goes blank, I step from the car, and with a deep breath, walk into my house.
    The kitchen is empty, but the backyard is full. Through the sliding glass doors, there’s a party.
    Four bathing-suit-clad adorable princesses, three moms, and Gordon. The girls run through a helicopter sprinkler, squealing and screeching with delight. The moms lounge on our patio furniture, sipping refreshing-looking pink concoctions, and Gordon leans against the barbeque regaling them with an apparently hilarious anecdote.
    Addie takes a running slide through the mud, her bottoms not skidding as fast as the rest of her to reveal her white heinie, and my heart smiles at the sight of my girl who I haven’t seen in twelve hours.
    I never realize how much I miss my kids until I see them.
    I set down my briefcase and walk out to meet our guests. Gordon introduces me to the women, but the names immediately blur together—Jen, Jan, June, Jackie, Janet, Greta, or Fred—or maybe, the truth is, I just don’t care.
    As I walk back through the sliding door, I feel the judgment in their stares and imagine what they’re thinking.
    Bitch.
    Doesn’t keep herself up very well.
    Can’t believe that’s Gordon’s wife.
    She didn’t even say hello to her daughter.
    I turn heel and step back through the doors.
    “Hi, Addie,” I say through the swirling water.
    Addie either doesn’t hear me or ignores me.
    The women’s eyes and Gordon’s watch.
    “Hi, sweetie,” I try louder.
    Addie has her friend, a gangly dark-haired girl, by the hands, and they’re jumping over the stream of water.
    “…eleven, twelve, thirteen…”