Read Online More Than You Know by Nan Rossiter - Free Book Online

Jacobs over for a candlelight séance?”
    Beryl sat down on the corner of her old twin bed—which was the only place left to sit—and grinned. “Yeah, we told her we were contacting old lady Johnson so we could ask her what really happened to her husband. Isak was so good at acting like she was possessed—even I believed it for a minute.”
    “Yeah, and Sarah was so scared she went down and told Mum she had to go home. I honestly thought she was going to wet her pants!”
    “And Mum was so mad—do you remember?”
    “I remember,” Rumer said. “She said we were mean, but it was so funny—and Sarah deserved it.”
    “We were mean,” Beryl said remorsefully.
    “Ber, girls are mean—and manipulative. It’s in their nature, except in rare cases—like you! Knowing how I acted at times makes me very glad I have a son.”
    “Well, Mum was right.”
    “I know, thank goodness we outgrew it.”
    “I wonder what happened to Sarah.”
    “She married John Winston and moved to Vermont. They have a dairy farm and something like ten kids—all under the age of fourteen.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Facebook. You should join. It’s fun to see what old classmates are up to—and what they look like!”
    “Well, at least she got married,” Beryl said gloomily, ignoring her sister’s enthusiasm for Facebook.
    Rumer looked up from where she was kneeling in the closet. “Ber, marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—trust me! Besides, would you want to be married to John Winston and have ten of his kids?”
    “No—but I’d like to find out for myself that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
    Rumer sat down next to her on the bed. “You just haven’t found the right guy yet.”
    Beryl shook her head. “Rumer, I’m almost forty-five and I have zero prospects—it doesn’t look very promising—and having kids is almost completely out of the picture. Even if I was pregnant at this very moment, it would be risky, and I don’t want to be an old mom.”
    Rumer sighed, knowing she was right. “You’ll meet someone, Ber. I just know it. Remember what Mum used to say: ‘God has a plan, and even when it doesn’t look very promising, you just have to trust that He has something good in mind.’ And, Ber, if anyone deserves something good, it’s you! Besides, Mum’s up there now and I’m sure she’s pulling some strings.”
    Beryl laughed, knowing she was right. “I wonder why Mum never remarried.”
    Rumer shrugged. “It would’ve taken a very brave man to marry a woman with three little girls.”
    “That’s true . . .”
    “Besides, she used to say that Dad was irreplaceable and she didn’t want to bring another man into our lives. I think she worried that it might not work out.”
    “I don’t know, Ru. I’ve always had this feeling that there was something else that held her back, something going on in her life that she didn’t talk about.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s hard to explain. At first, I thought it was just a normal mother-daughter connection, but then, in recent years, it was as if I could feel what she was feeling—with the same intensity she was feeling it.”
    Rumer frowned.
    “I know, it sounds weird. Maybe I’m crazy!”
    Rumer shook her head. “You’re not crazy. But I wonder if it has something to do with the accident,” she offered. “Mum was pregnant with you when they had the accident—and it was so traumatic.”
    “Maybe. I honestly don’t know, but the older I got, the more I felt it. Anyway, I’ve also always had this feeling there was something in her heart that she never told anyone. I don’t know what it was, but in the last year, as her memory declined, I heard her say the name David on several occasions. I couldn’t figure out who she was talking about, and the one time I asked her, she just gazed out the window and didn’t answer. I forgot all about it until yesterday when I was putting away her wedding rings and came across a