Read Online The Days of Redemption by Shelley Shepard Gray - Free Book Online Page B

shock.
    â€œMarie and the girls are upset. Actually, Marie thought it would be best if you and Sam came over this evening to talk about things with Mamm and Daed.”
    â€œWhat good does she think that will do?”
    Peter smiled. “I thought the same exact thing. When have our parents ever cared to hear our opinions about anything?”
    â€œLet’s see . . . Never?” Lorene quipped with more than a touch of bitterness.
    â€œI agree with you. But, I do think Marie has a point. If we do nothing, our parents will decide that their pasts never need to be mentioned again. I don’t think that is right.”
    â€œI agree.” Looking into her half-full coffee cup, she sighed. “As much as I don’t want to sit across from our parents and shoot questions at them, I think it needs to be done. When I think of how different our lives would have been, if we’d ever gotten even a hint that they, too, had had troubles . . . it makes me want to either scream or roll up in a ball.”
    â€œI know, Lorene.” He felt terrible for her. She’d always knocked heads with their mother, and had always come out the loser in their battles.
    â€œHave you talked to Sam yet?” she murmured. “He’ll have plenty to say, too.”
    â€œI’m going to go see Samuel next.”
    â€œYou don’t need to. I’ll tell him and Mary Beth when I get off work this afternoon. I’ll stop by their haus on the way home.”
    â€œI hope he’ll want to join us.”
    â€œHe will. And we’ll need to call the others.” Her eyes widened. “What do you think Jacob is going to say?”
    As the eldest of the six of them, Jacob had borne the brunt of their parents’ criticism. He’d moved to Indiana the moment he’d met his wife. Peter could remember him coming back only a handful of times over the last twenty years. “Only God knows the answer to that, I’m afraid. But something tells me that Jacob is not going to take this well.”
    â€œHe won’t, and neither will Aden or Sara.” After glancing to her right to make sure no one was eavesdropping, she murmured, “We’re a dysfunctional lot for a reason, Peter. I only hope this news doesn’t throw us all into a bigger mess than we’re already in.”
    She was teasing, of course. But there was more than a grain of truth to what she was saying. Each one of them bore the scars of their parents’ interference and constant putdowns.
    She closed her eyes. “Peter, when I think of what she put me through with John Miller, I want to scream.”
    â€œJohn Miller?” He tried to place the man—and Lorene’s relationship with him. “He’s the woodworker, right?”
    â€œHe used to simply be a woodworker. Now he owns one of the most successful businesses in Berlin, Miller’s Fine Furniture. He must have fifty people working for him.”
    â€œI’ve seen the store, but I didn’t know you had ties to the owner.”
    â€œI don’t. I mean, not anymore. John and I tried to court, but Mamm made me stop seeing him because she didn’t think the Millers were good enough.”
    â€œWhat was wrong with them?”
    â€œJohn’s mother passed away when he was young, and his daed never really recovered from it, I’m afraid. John and his twin brother, Thomas, were always the kids who needed a shower, who needed cleaner clothes. . . .” She shrugged. “They’d needed a lot of things, I suppose.”
    Frowning, Lorene added, “I knew that I wasn’t any better than John, but I was too afraid of making Mamm upset with me for the rest of my life to go up against her. So I began to have doubts about him.” Quietly, she added, “Finally, I pushed John away.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Lorene.” Yes, it was becoming increasingly obvious that each one of them had gone to a great