A Mother's Promise. Ruth Scofield

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СКАЧАТЬ come on. It’s chocolate.”

      “So?”

      “So, chocolate is one of my favorite vegetables, and I always eat my vegetables.”

      Yeah, this guy thought he was cute, all right. At least two of the other women thought so, too, from the envious glances tossed her way.

      “Thanks, but no thanks,” she muttered. “I have to go.”

      Giving Beth Anne a quick wave, she made a beeline for the double doors.

      Ethan followed her. “Hey, I’ll walk you to your car.”

      “You don’t have to bother. I’m used to being on my own.”

      “Really?” He opened the outside door and allowed her to precede him. “No boyfriend?”

      “No.” The thought of anyone in their age group having “boyfriends” or “girlfriends” seemed ludicrous to her.

      Never mind, she thought. Engaging in useless conversation that passed as flirting was another habit she’d given up. Besides, her mind kept jumping ahead. She wanted to race across the parking lot and gun the truck’s engine into action. Why had she thought it an advantage to park in the corner space?

      “Did you just move here or something?” Ethan asked as they made their way across the lot.

      “Yes…no. I, um, just moved to Independence.”

      “I used to live in Kansas City. In Westport. But now I live here in River’s Edge. Hey, want to do a movie on Saturday?”

      Lisa climbed into the truck and held her breath as she turned the key in the ignition. She sighed in relief when the engine started. Uncle Fred insisted the truck ran like a top, in spite of the body rust.

      Would Aunt Katherine allow her in the house at this hour?

      “So how about it?” Ethan’s tone cut into her thoughts.

      “Um…can’t. Have to go, really. Nice meeting you, Ethan.”

      “Okay. See you next Thursday.”

      “Sure, sure….”

      Maybe.

      Chapter Two

      Katherine Barge, the woman Lisa had called “aunt” all her life, was really her mother’s cousin. She and her husband, Mark, lived in a forty-year-old ranch-style house in Kansas City. They’d been the only ones Lisa’s mother, Betty, could turn to for any kind of help during Lisa’s troubled youth, and they’d grudgingly given Lisa a home for a while. But Katherine’s help always carried a heavy dose of look-at-all-I’ve-done-for-you grievances and warnings of dire consequences to pay if Betty didn’t find some backbone to cope with life.

      Her mother never had, Lisa admitted.

      Then it became “if Lisa doesn’t mend her ways…” Katherine also berated Betty’s weakness when it came to disciplining her daughter.

      Katherine enumerated Betty’s failings over supper almost every night. If Betty hadn’t chosen to marry that no-good lowlife, Rick—against her very sound advice, Katherine usually included—then she wouldn’t find herself in such a bind now. If Betty had stood up to that bully, she wouldn’t have sustained the black eyes or broken arms or been abandoned. If Betty would only snap out of this so-called depression and get a job, then she could make it on her own.

      Katherine’s list stretched to include Lisa. Her teenage transgressions piled higher as the months dragged out. She didn’t clean the kitchen properly. Her skirts and her shorts were too short, her hair was worn too wild. She took forever at her homework, keeping the household up late. And if she continued to hang out with that crazy wild kid down the street, she’d find trouble.

      What Katherine complained of most was the way the boys looked at Lisa.

      Lisa’s answer was to make herself less and less visible at home and to find attention elsewhere. When the boys found her attractive, she responded with a slow sexy smile she’d learned from the movies.

      Eventually, Lisa and her mom found an apartment of their own, but life did not improve. With her mother’s spotty work record and frequent inability to cope, Lisa grew up fast. She learned to juggle their income and bills, her schoolwork, her after-school job, the household and her mom—until Betty finally re-married and moved to Florida.

      At seventeen, Lisa had been on her own. Emotionally, she still was on her own, she thought now as she waited at Aunt Katherine’s door. On her own again except for the assurance that the Lord was with her. But that was so new…she didn’t really know…

      The front door opened a crack. Katherine’s lined face hardened the moment she spotted Lisa. “Oh. It’s you. Might’ve known.”

      Lisa despised the fact she’d fulfilled every horrible prediction Aunt Katherine had hurled at her over the years. She had no excuses, but she’d worked diligently to turn her life around this past year.

      Behind Katherine, the TV spouted the nightly news and weather. The predicted cold front already made the temperature feel icy. They’d lost the last remnant of summer, Lisa guessed. Like her. She had nothing of her youth left, and only one bright star in her future.

      “Yeah, it’s me.”

      “What are you doing here at this time of night, Lisa? Past your curfew? I’m about ready for bed.”

      “You know why…”

      “Who is it, Kate?” Uncle Mark called as he came from the back of the house.

      Lisa’s fingers tightened on her shoulder purse as she held Katherine’s severe gaze. “May I come in, Aunt Katherine?”

      “She’s asleep,” Katherine snapped. “You can’t disturb her.”

      “I won’t, I promise. I’ll only look at her.”

      “You’re outside your visiting hours, girl. You weren’t supposed to come until Sunday.”

      “I know that. Please?” Lisa despised begging, but swallowed her pride. She’d be on her knees if it would help her cause. “Please, Aunt Katherine. I can’t wait till Sunday. It’s been months—”

      “Let her in, Kate.” Mark’s commanding tone had an underlying note of compassion.

      Lisa held her breath. She didn’t dare acknowledge Mark’s help.

      Katherine’s lips thinned, but after flashing Mark an enraged glare, she swung the door wide. “All right. But only for a minute, y’hear? If you make any trouble, then don’t expect to come here on Sunday. Now don’t you dare wake the child. She’s got nursery school in the morning.”

      “She does?” Lisa stepped inside, so eager that she barely kept herself from racing to the tiny back bedroom where she’d stayed with her mother. “Oh. I didn’t know…you didn’t tell me…”

      The house smelled the same—of СКАЧАТЬ