Read Online The Long Road Home by Mary Alice Monroe - Free Book Online Page B

six-bedroom house. It was enough to weaken her at the knees.
    “I’m just hoping to get done what I need to survive during the winter. And at least a door on the bathroom,” she said, thinking of C.W.’s showers. “I can hold off for a while on the aesthetics.” She didn’t mention that once the house was finished, her taxes would also rise.
    Esther stood in the center of the great room and craned her neck to view the vaulted ceilings. “Why don’t you just finish it all up?” she asked. “This house has been sitting up here untended for years. In fact, every year, right about February when we’re feeling pretty tight in our place, we can’t help but wonder what you started this big house for, just for you and Mike and no kids.”
    Nora saw from Esther’s expression that she envied the room.
    “Why be finicky now?” Esther asked, casting a testy glance Nora’s way. “Mike would finish the job in a hurry. First-class all the way.”
    Nora’s back stiffened. “Frankly, I wish he had finished this house. But he didn’t.” Nora’s face was pink with indignation. “Mike left quite a few projects unfinished, and now it’s up to me to tidy up. I will get it done when I can, as I can.” She tightened her arms across her chest and her voice was more sharp than she had intended.
    Esther’s eyes narrowed, studying Nora. “You really plan to live here?”
    “I do.”
    “Why?” She shifted her weight. “Why did you move here anyway?”
    Nora expelled a long hiss of air. How often was she going to have to defend this decision? She thought a moment, trying to explain the unexplainable.
    “I moved here from New York to find something beautiful again. In me and out there.” She saw Esther’s doubtful expression and coupled her hands in frustration. “I can’t put it into words.”
    “When are you gonna move back?”
    Esther scored a direct hit that left Nora speechless. Looking at her, Nora saw the peachy skin and sweet features of a country girl—and the brittle cool of a seasoned New York socialite. Nora’s face colored, then flushed as she watched a small smile of victory ease across Esther’s face.
    “People like you come and go from New York all the time,” Esther charged. “Dreaming of the good life. Then you learn that life is life, and up here that life is pretty tough. Next thing you pack up and go. Leavin’ us behind.” She sniffed and looked away, squinting. When she turned back, her eyes were hard.
    “We don’t take much to people who come and go.”
    Nora stared back with eyes wide, affronted by the hostility she did nothing to inspire.
    “Speaking of which,” Esther swung on her heel and grabbed her bag off the floor, “I gotta go.”
    Nora counted Esther’s steps across the plywood. “It’s not like that,” Nora called to her back.
    Esther turned. “We’ll see,” she said, then left.
    Nora walked out onto the deck to watch Esther as she backed away in her Impala, turned, then drove out of sight.
    She had remained standing on the deck; she stood there still, recalling Esther’s words as the clouds grew heavy in the heavens. Nora gripped the deck rail tightly and fought off the dark, dull cloak of depression.
    “Yes, Esther,” she spoke aloud in the autumn hush. “We will see.”

6
    MAY JOHNSTON STIRRED UP a potion of baking soda and warm water and set it before Seth, giving it a final spin at the table.
    “Drink every drop. You need to burp.”
    She stood, one hand on the back of Seth’s chair, the other on her ample hip, hovering like a hen as her brother grunted and slowly reached out for the brew.
    “You know I won’t budge till it’s gone.”
    Seth looked up at the formidable figure of his sister. Only her stubbornness was bigger than she was.
    “Don’t I know it,” he muttered. With a sigh of resignation, he took the cup and swallowed it down in three noisy gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he grimaced. Soon after, a loud raucous burp