Read Online Yesterday's Embers by Deborah Raney - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Deborah Raney
Ads: Link
middle-school gym, Harley standing on Dad’s lap, clapping. She shook the fantasy away. She was starting to get mixed up about what had really happened and what she’d only wished for in her imagination.
What really happened was that Dad called Miss Gorman and told her Kayeleigh wouldn’t be back in school till after New Year’s. Her friend Rudi told her that when Miss Gorman found out she wasn’t going to bein the program, she’d given Kayeleigh’s solo to Lisa Breck. At least Lisa hadn’t rubbed it in the way she usually did.
She read the invitation again. The wedding was March 10. She would ask Dad if she could tack the invitation on the bulletin board above her side of the bed. But she’d take it to school to show off first. She bet Lisa Breck wasn’t even invited.
By March it would be spring. And surely by spring Dad would be ready to start going places again. Maybe a wedding was exactly what he needed to remind him how much he used to like being around people, how much fun he used to be.
For as long as she could remember, Mickey had dreamed of having a big family like the one she grew up in…. And prospects in Clayburn were “slim to none,” as her brothers liked to say.
Chapter Nine
M ickey filled the watering can from the kid-height sink in the corner of the playroom and looked out at the blustery March sky. She’d be glad when she could get some of these plants back in the ground in her garden. Plucking off the yellowed leaves of a leggy philodendron, she eyed the rest of the plants. They were starting to look a little peaked. She’d neglected them over the winter.
She soaked the soil in the clay pot and moved on to the next plant. Brenda teased her about babying her plants as much as she did the daycare kids. It wasn’t true, of course, but Brenda probably didn’t understand how much it meant to her to be surrounded by the leafy curtains of greenery—especially when the winter days grew short and sunshine was all too rare.
Brenda had kids of her own. She’d been a mom since she was twenty-one.She couldn’t know what it felt like to long to hold a baby of your own in your arms, but to have that wish denied year after year after year.
For as long as she could remember, Mickey had dreamed of having a big family like the one she grew up in. When she was in high school, it never crossed her mind that she might still be single at thirty.
And prospects in Clayburn were “slim to none,” as her brothers liked to say. Even though her brothers and their wives had all moved out of Clayburn after both parents had died, the Valdez clan still managed to get together the first Sunday of every month—usually at Rick’s house in Salina. She doted on her nieces and nephews. She had four of each, and Rick’s wife, Angie, was expecting another little girl any day now. But it wasn’t the same as having her own babies.
She pinched out a spiky flower from a coleus she’d brought inside for the winter. It was tempting to let the flowers bloom, but the colors of the leaves—the true beauty of the coleus—were more vibrant if the flowers were pinched off as soon as they appeared. That was one question she would ask God her first day in heaven. Why would He create a flower that was meant to be pinched out before it reached full bloom?
She wasn’t sure she could be happy if she had to go through life alone, never knowing what it was like to give birth, to nurse a baby at her breast. She wanted to look into her babies’ eyes the way her brothers and their wives did, and see Dad’s Cuban heritage in a little girl’s brown eyes and coal black hair, or their mother’s Swedish blood in the blue eyes and stubborn jaw of a little boy.
Mickey had inherited equal doses of her parents’ blood. She had her father’s thick dark hair and warm olive skin, and Mama’s crystal blue eyes. It was a combination her high school friends had envied, but sometimes she would have preferred Mama’s silky white blond
What really happened was that Dad called Miss Gorman and told her Kayeleigh wouldn’t be back in school till after New Year’s. Her friend Rudi told her that when Miss Gorman found out she wasn’t going to bein the program, she’d given Kayeleigh’s solo to Lisa Breck. At least Lisa hadn’t rubbed it in the way she usually did.
She read the invitation again. The wedding was March 10. She would ask Dad if she could tack the invitation on the bulletin board above her side of the bed. But she’d take it to school to show off first. She bet Lisa Breck wasn’t even invited.
By March it would be spring. And surely by spring Dad would be ready to start going places again. Maybe a wedding was exactly what he needed to remind him how much he used to like being around people, how much fun he used to be.
For as long as she could remember, Mickey had dreamed of having a big family like the one she grew up in…. And prospects in Clayburn were “slim to none,” as her brothers liked to say.
Chapter Nine
M ickey filled the watering can from the kid-height sink in the corner of the playroom and looked out at the blustery March sky. She’d be glad when she could get some of these plants back in the ground in her garden. Plucking off the yellowed leaves of a leggy philodendron, she eyed the rest of the plants. They were starting to look a little peaked. She’d neglected them over the winter.
She soaked the soil in the clay pot and moved on to the next plant. Brenda teased her about babying her plants as much as she did the daycare kids. It wasn’t true, of course, but Brenda probably didn’t understand how much it meant to her to be surrounded by the leafy curtains of greenery—especially when the winter days grew short and sunshine was all too rare.
Brenda had kids of her own. She’d been a mom since she was twenty-one.She couldn’t know what it felt like to long to hold a baby of your own in your arms, but to have that wish denied year after year after year.
For as long as she could remember, Mickey had dreamed of having a big family like the one she grew up in. When she was in high school, it never crossed her mind that she might still be single at thirty.
And prospects in Clayburn were “slim to none,” as her brothers liked to say. Even though her brothers and their wives had all moved out of Clayburn after both parents had died, the Valdez clan still managed to get together the first Sunday of every month—usually at Rick’s house in Salina. She doted on her nieces and nephews. She had four of each, and Rick’s wife, Angie, was expecting another little girl any day now. But it wasn’t the same as having her own babies.
She pinched out a spiky flower from a coleus she’d brought inside for the winter. It was tempting to let the flowers bloom, but the colors of the leaves—the true beauty of the coleus—were more vibrant if the flowers were pinched off as soon as they appeared. That was one question she would ask God her first day in heaven. Why would He create a flower that was meant to be pinched out before it reached full bloom?
She wasn’t sure she could be happy if she had to go through life alone, never knowing what it was like to give birth, to nurse a baby at her breast. She wanted to look into her babies’ eyes the way her brothers and their wives did, and see Dad’s Cuban heritage in a little girl’s brown eyes and coal black hair, or their mother’s Swedish blood in the blue eyes and stubborn jaw of a little boy.
Mickey had inherited equal doses of her parents’ blood. She had her father’s thick dark hair and warm olive skin, and Mama’s crystal blue eyes. It was a combination her high school friends had envied, but sometimes she would have preferred Mama’s silky white blond
Similar Books
