Read Online Where We Are Now by Carolyn Osborn - Free Book Online Page A

taken me with her to one.
    Marguerite leaned over and put her glass down on the brick floor. Her eyes were dark and deeply lined. Her hair was dark also except for gray streaks in front. Though the same age, she looked a lot older than my mother.
    â€œYou see this ring, Marianne?”
    â€œYes.” Fire shone through its milky surface.
    â€œIt’s an opal. George gave it to me. When I die, it will be yours.”
    I liked rings, but the idea of someone dying and leaving something to me made the pit of my stomach shrink. I said, “You’re not going to … to…. ”
    â€œEverybody dies sometime.” She picked up her glass.
    I escaped to the kitchen to make fudge.
    Ada took it over when I gave up trying to beat it by hand. “This won’t set. Maybe it’s not cooked enough. Maybe it’s the weather.”
    In the wide hall where a grand piano marked the end of the circular staircase, we could hear the notes of a melody I didn’t know. The doors to the bar near the pantry were pulled open and, in a few minutes, banged shut. Marguerite walked into the kitchen.
    â€œYou want some fudge?” I offered her a gooey pan full.
    â€œOh, God! No!” She thrust her hand out to push the pan away. Chocolate splattered on the floor.
    Marguerite laughed, wheeled around, and almost fell going out the door.
    Ada’s hand touched my shoulder. “She be all right. She’s going to bed soon.”
    I looked over at the bright brown globs of chocolate on the polished floor. “Oh, Ada, I’m sorry.”
    â€œWell, come on,” she said. She handed me a spatula and grabbed another one herself. “It never was going to set anyway.”
    Ada fed me supper and left for her house in the twilight. I wanted to go with her. It was so quiet in the house, so empty even though I knew Marguerite was in her room. The place seemed full of echoes and odd noises, creaking sounds, water gurgling, wind sighing through shutters. By the time dark fell, the soft rain had given way to a storm which the canopied bed’s ceiling and side curtains couldn’t shut out. Rolls of thunder woke me. I sat up clutching a pillow. Marguerite didn’t come to check on me. There was no one to call. Uneasy dread made me certain I had outstayed my welcome, and I had to be there three more days. Mother was still in Memphis. My grandmother had gone to visit someone. Where was Uncle George?
    He turned up the next day. I couldn’t see him though Icould hear his voice in the next room. I tiptoed to the hall and caught sight of him standing in front of the fireplace where blue dragons curled around two huge Chinese porcelain vases on either side of the hearth near his trousers. The sun shone outside. Drops still slid down the dining room windows, but Uncle George’s accusing voice was a dry wind rasping through Marguerite’s house.
    â€œThe war’s hardly over, and you’re running off to Europe to find cousins three or four times removed.”
    â€œOf course I’m going. What’s left of my mother’s family—”
    â€œMarguerite, you just got back from Florida last week.”
    â€œYou should have gone with me.”
    â€œSome people have to work for a living.”
    Marguerite laughed. She went to Belgium, stayed six months, and after she returned she and Uncle George spent a week in Hot Springs together. Marguerite introduced him to Jean, a rich Texas widow who George married in a little town in Arkansas.
    â€œI wish I had been a fly on that preacher’s wall,” said Miss Kate.
    Mother sighed and told me, “Mama can’t even imagine somebody getting married without a preacher. George probably married in a J. P.’s living room.”
    â€œWhat about Marguerite?”
    â€œOh honey, Marguerite never really wanted to marry George.”
    After Uncle George brought Jean back to Franklin they bought Marguerite’s house, and she