Read Online Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony - Free Book Online

through?”
    “Look,” I said in the voice I use when I’m trying to get Little Jackie to be reasonable about something, “I know you wish she was a doctor, but she’s not, and she needs your help. Her blood pressure is out of control. And the island doctor was killed last week.”
    “Killed?”
    I didn’t want to explain. I didn’t want Grandpa to know that it was my fault for not separating the calf from its mother. “There was an accident,” I said. “And he died.”
    “So what? I thought your mom preferred a midwife .” You could hear the contempt in his voice for midwives everywhere.
    “She does, and Mrs. Rosetree is looking after her as best as she can, but this time Mom’s health is really bad. She needs a real doctor.”
    He didn’t say anything.
    “And Mom misses you both,” I continued. “When she thought Grandma had died and you hadn’t made up . . . well, she almost went crazy with grief. She really needs you.”
    He studied my punctured foot, not meeting my eye.
    “They need my help on the farm,” I said. “And I want to go back right away. Will you both please come?”
    He shook his head. “Nope. Your mom made her own bed, she has to lie in it.”
    “But she won’t,” I said. “Dr. Robinson ordered her to nap two hours a day, but she’s being stubborn. My dad thinks you’re the only one she’ll listen to.”
    He laughed then, a big, rolling, bitter version of my mother’s usually joyful one. And then his face softened. “Molly, I’m sorry that circumstances have made it so we haven’t gotten to know our grandkids, and you’re welcome to stay for a short visit, but I think you should head back pretty soon so you can help your mom.”
    “I can’t help her,” I said. “Only you can. Besides, I can’t just go home anyway.”
    He pressed the bottom of my foot and I flinched. “Why not? What’s stopping you?”
    “I don’t have any money,” I admitted. “At least not enough for train fare.”
    He looked up at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “You came all the way down here to take us back and you don’t have any money?”
    “Mom said-”
    “Mom said,” he mimicked me, suddenly bitter. “ Mom said we have all the money in the world, did she? What do you eat up there in Canada without any money? Stone soup?”
    He had let go of my foot so he could root around in his bag, and I jumped up in indignation.
    “Sit down,” he said, his voice gentle. “You’ve got something deep in your foot.”
    I sat back in the chair, but only because it hurt so much to stand.
    “This is going to be painful,” he said, “but I’ll be as quick as I can.” He used sharp tweezers to dig into the tenderest part of my foot. A little yelp escaped in spite of my efforts to hold it in.
    He leaned in close, squinting. “Don’t move. I’ve almost got it.”
    White-hot pain burned through my whole body, and wooziness washed over me, making me sink back into the chair.
    “There,” he said, holding up a piece of green glass with the tweezers.
    I let out a long, slow breath. “Thanks,” I gulped. “Listen, all we need is train fare-”
    “You don’t get it, do you? There isn’t any money.”
    “There has to be enough for train fare,” I argued. “We can sell something.”
    “Do you think we’d be sitting here without electricity if we had anything left to sell?”
    “But Mom said you’re rich. And whenever we talked to Grandma on CyberSpeak, she said you were fine.”
    His tone had softened, but his eyes flashed with anger. “We were getting by until a couple of months ago, but a few weeks in the hospital wiped out our entire savings and the pension fund dried up last year. I had to sell everything I could just to buy food.”
    He’d sold his possessions to buy food and he had the nerve to be mad at Mom for becoming a farmer? I didn’t understand him at all. I took a hard look at the room and saw that it really was much shabbier than I would’ve expected from my