Read Online The Matriarch by Sharon; Hawes - Free Book Online Page A

“Around six o’clock.” She opens the oven door. The fragrance of warm cinnamon and caramelized sugar fills the small kitchen and instantly generates a profuse amount of saliva in Carla’s mouth. No doubt about it, she’s every bit as good a baker as all her friends say.
    Carla wants a cookie in the worst way but knows that at the moment they’re way too hot. Not one for patience, she casts her eye about the kitchen in a frantic search for something sugary. And she finds it. Of course! God bless Frank Murphy and that fig tree of his!
    She puts the cookie sheet down on the counter, pulls off the oven mitts, and snatches up another fig, a greenish-purple one this time. She takes a large bite.
    Oh my goodness!
    Juice bursts from the pulp in her mouth and mingles with her saliva, creating an overwhelming sweetness that goes right to her brain. She’s transported. Before conscious thought returns, Carla has devoured three figs.
    Her mind is now a study in focus and clarity. She remembers her day and everything in it like a movie being played out in her mind’s eye in living Technicolor.
    Especially the part dealing with that prick she’s married to. Of course, she’ll divorce Dante. Why has she waited so long? There’s a slight blur in her mind as to what it is exactly that makes him so distasteful, but the fact that he’s profoundly unsuitable as a husband is now crystal clear to her. So clear, it actually hurts her head to think about it.
    Carla hears him then, stomping into the house through the laundry room. She can smell the man, even before he gets to the kitchen. Dante stinks. Not the usual workingman-in-the-sun smell, no. It’s more odiferous than that, more of a leaden stench. If she examines him closely, Carla is sure she’ll actually see the aura of rank odor that surrounds him.
    “Hi sweetie,” the prick says cheerily as he comes into the room, stinking up her clean kitchen.
    Carla doesn’t bother to respond.
    Dante opens the fridge, pulls out the jar of ice water, and tips it to his mouth. She hates that, when he doesn’t use a glass. The man is more than she can bear.
    “Prick,” Carla says softly to her husband’s back as she picks up the meat cleaver.
    Charlotte comes striding into the kitchen. “We’re out of figs, Aunt Carla. I’m going—” she stops short as she sees the cleaver in Carla’s hand.
    Carla quickly changes her grip on the cleaver as if offering it to Dante. “I was just asking your uncle to trim these chops a bit,” she says. “There are some figs left here, Charlotte.” She nods toward the bowl on the butcher block. “But you could drive up to Frank’s and pick up some more. He says he’s got plenty.”
    “Oh,” Charlotte says, staring at the cleaver. “I … I’ll do that … yes.” She seems confused, taken aback.
    Dante takes the cleaver from Carla, and she’s relieved. She hopes Charlotte didn’t notice her wielding that cleaver like a weapon.

    I’m pleased to see Charlotte pull up in the blue woody. She’s come for more figs, and I decide to take her out to The Tree.
    “I want you to see this thing,” I say as we walk slowly across the bridge. Her thigh brushes against me, and I don’t think it’s by accident. Wishful thinking?
    “Shelly loves these figs, but I think they look disgusting,” Charlotte says.
    “Disgusting?” I carry a basket Frank has given me for the figs.
    “Yeah. So personal. Kind of … ovarian, somehow.” She laughs. “Though I don’t really know what an ovary looks like.”
    I don’t know what to say to that.
    “Like I’m eating something private, intimate. Some kind of organ.” She puts her cool arm through mine.
    I smile down at her, unable to suppress a mild shudder.
    She’s crazy. In a charming way. Sort of …
    “I’m not a fan of figs,” I say.
    The tree looms up several yards ahead of us, and I pull Charlotte to a stop. In my head, I capitalize it: The Tree. I swear it’s grown in just the few hours