Read Online The Wedding Tree by Robin Wells - Free Book Online

as leather,” Mother had fussed. She’d always been after me for unladylike behavior, but I didn’t think that ladies seemed to have much fun. Gardening was the one ladylike activity I loved, because it involved digging in the dirt. On this particular day, Mother and I were mixing old coffee grounds into the soil under the azaleas. She said it made them bloom longer. I remember dipping the grounds out of a big Crisco can, and inhaling deeply. I’d loved the mingled scent of coffee and dirt and growing things.
    So odd, how I could remember long-ago things like they happened yesterday, yet yesterday’s events seemed covered with moss.
    Eddie and Ralph pulled their car into the drive behind us, and I used that infernal walker to get to the porch. Eddie helped me upthe steps—the steps were a nice, clean gray, as if they’d been newly painted—and then I was in the house, and Snowball was bouncing around my feet, dancing as if it were Christmas, New Year’s, and every other holiday all rolled into one big, fat, joyful, beefy bone.
    Hope picked him up so I didn’t trip over him, while Eddie led me into the living room and got me settled in a chair. Hope set Snowball in my lap, where he licked my face and wagged his tail as I talked to him and petted him, and it was only after he calmed down and curled into a soft, strokable ball that I realized I was sitting in the floral chair where my mother used do her hand sewing when she listened to the radio. Of course, that was back when the chair was in her house, and the radio was a piece of furniture.
    I closed my eyes and it was like I was transported back to my childhood home. I could practically feel the itchy wool sofa. Daddy’s leather chair was angled beside it, the armrest worn and cracked, and . . .
    â€œOkay, Mom?”
    Eddie’s question made me jerk my eyes open. He was sitting on the sofa in my living room and I believe he’d been talking for quite a while, but I hadn’t been paying attention. Oh dear. How rude of me!
    â€œOkay?” he asked again.
    I was ashamed to admit that I hadn’t been following his conversation. “Fine,” I said.
Fine
was a word that seemed suitable for most responses.
    He rose, and the red-haired man seated beside him—Rufus? Rupert? I couldn’t recall his name, dadburn it—rose with him. “Well, then, we’d better get going. Our plane leaves at noon.” Eddie came over and kissed my cheek. “We’ll be back to get you at the beginning of June.”
    Alarm shot through me. “Get me?” I echoed blankly.
    â€œYes, Mom. To move you to San Francisco.” He spoke in a patient tone, as if he were talking to someone who didn’t understand English well or was slow-witted—or nuts.
    I hadn’t lost my mind. I had the feeling he thought I was crazy.
    â€œWe’ve talked about it a lot, remember?”
    â€œYes,” I said, although I didn’t remember, not entirely. I remembered talking with Eddie and Hope and some lady at the hospital about how I couldn’t live in my house anymore, and I knew I’d agreed to something, but what that something was, I couldn’t quite fix in my mind. The one thing that really mattered was the one thing I knew for sure: Hope was going to stay here and help me pack up the house, bless her heart, and I’d have the chance to set things right.
    But Eddie was talking about what would happen afterward. Maybe I’d better speak up before Eddie’s plans got too far along to change. “I don’t know if we’ve discussed it, dear, but as much as I love you, I want to live on my own.”
    The redhead’s muffled snort let me know we’d discussed it plenty.
    Bless his heart—Eddie’s eyes remained warm and patient. “I know, Mom. We’re going to find a nice assisted living center for you and Snowball.”
    â€œAnd I insist on paying my