The Secrets of Rosa Lee. Jodi Thomas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ too?”

      Micah nodded. As the associate, part of his job was to serve on every committee and charity board that came along. This one didn’t seem to require much. They only had to vote on what to do with the old place. He hadn’t even gone inside and had already made up his mind. They needed to tear it down before it fell. Micah envisioned a park in its place, maybe with a running track.

      “Isn’t it exciting?” Beth Ann finally found her voice. “I’m sixty-four and, to my knowledge, no one’s ever been past the door of this place in my lifetime. There’s no telling what we’ll find.”

      “Mice,” Ada May mumbled. “Maybe even rats and spiders. Rattlers, if it’s warm enough.”

      Beth Ann shuddered and pulled a purse, big enough to use for a sleepover, from the van. “We came early, hoping to walk around the grounds before the meeting started. Would you like to join us, Reverend?”

      Micah offered each an arm. “I’d love to, ladies. I planned to do the same thing.” He didn’t add that he had been early to everything for three years.

      Stones still marked the path through what had once been a fine garden. Huge bushes of twisted twigs looked misshapen. Micah guessed in spring they’d bloom once more as they had for almost a hundred years. A stand of evergreens along the north property line blocked the wind and cast a shadow over part of the plants, making them appear gray and lifeless.

      Ada May tugged on Micah’s arm. “The garden seems to have no order, twisting and turning, but if you stay on the path, you’ll make it back to the house. All paths turn back on themselves and lead to the rear of the house.”

      “Now, how do you know that, sister?” Beth Ann asked from just behind them.

      “Everyone knows that,” Ada May snapped. “Young folks bring their dates here and have for years. Lovers walk the path at twilight.”

      “Well,” Beth Ann interrupted. “We’ll know if it’s fact after we walk it. I don’t go around telling anything that I don’t know to be true, until I check it out for myself. I’ve heard tell that evil roams these gardens. As a child, I heard of people being chased out of the gardens by a crazy man with long white hair flying like a sail in the wind behind him. But, I don’t know that for a fact, mind you.”

      Both women paused as if waiting for him to say something, but Micah guessed it would be dangerous to come between the sisters. He wondered if any man had ever been brave enough to try. Since they weren’t sure where the path ended, he figured neither had ever made this journey at dark when lovers came out.

      As they walked along, it occurred to him that he felt as dead inside as the winter gardens that hadn’t known a human touch in years. He didn’t much care as long as he could hide his feelings from everyone. Like an actor, he’d played the same role so many times that the words no longer made sense.

      He couldn’t talk about his thoughts, his feelings. Couldn’t tell people how much he still missed his wife. Every day. Every minute. It didn’t matter. Years had passed since he’d kissed Amy goodbye. All he had to do was stop breathing. Just don’t take another breath, and he’d be with her.

      But he couldn’t leave Logan. She wouldn’t want him to. So he’d go on walking, smiling, pretending, until Logan grew up, and one day he might get lucky and forget to breathe.

      As the sisters talked of winter roses, Micah closed his eyes and thought of Amy.

      Three

      “Straighten up, Lora. You look round-shouldered. I swear you’ve a model’s form when you hold your head up, but when you slouch, all I see is Lurch from The Addams Family,” Isadore whined. “And hurry up or you’ll be late for the committee meeting.”

      Lora Whitman pretended not to hear her mother and wondered if she could special order an ejection seat for the passenger side of her next Audi. Sometime during college, she’d become an Olympian at ignoring Isadore Whitman. Before Lora had hit puberty, her mother had thought her ideal, dressing her up like a doll and bragging to her bridge club about the perfection of her only child.

      Then the awkward years had hit and perfection had slipped, never to be reclaimed, no matter how hard Lora had tried to please. Even the night she had been named homecoming queen, Isadore had leaned to hug her daughter and had reminded her how bad her nails looked. While any other mother might have been proud, Isadore had whispered another comment about how fat Lora looked in taffeta.

      Lora honked as Old Man Hamm rolled through the town’s only stoplight in his rust bucket of a car. For a moment, she visualized him hitting the passenger side of her Audi, sending Isadore into terminal silence. As always, Lora colored her daydream with detail. Blood the same shade as her mother’s lipstick. The volunteer firemen trying to pull Isadore out without damaging her Escada suit.

      Lora steered left toward the eyesore of a house at the end of Main. Her mother continued to rattle. The plans for what she’d wear to her mother’s funeral faded as Isadore began her list of what Lora should do at the meeting. Her mother seemed to believe that if Lora left her sight without instructions she might—even though she was twenty-four years old—wander off the face of the earth.

      “I know you think this committee appointment isn’t important,” Isadore stated as if she had an audience. “But you’ll see. One thing will lead to another. You can help decide what to do with the old Altman house. The next thing you know, you’ll be moved to some important board seat. Why, in ten years you could be on the town council.”

      The only goal Lora had was to accumulate enough money to get out of this place. She could see no way that serving on a civic committee would help her accomplish that. But in the six months she had been back handling advertising for her father’s car dealership, she’d learned one thing. If she didn’t play the game, she had no chance of breaking free. Her father held as tightly to his money as her mother wanted to hold to her.

      “Don’t park in the dirt.” Isadore waved her hand, shooing the car as she might an animal. “There’s probably mud.”

      Lora stopped in the center of the street and threw her silver Audi into Park. “You think you can drive my car home?” She opened the driver’s side door with doubts about her mother’s ability to handle anything other than a Cadillac. Lora’s ex had told her she’d picked the car just to anger her father, but in truth, Lora loved the feel of it.

      Isadore tried not to look as if she were hurrying when she circled the car and took Lora’s place. “Of course I can drive this thing, but don’t you want me to pick you up? I’m just having my nails done. I could be back in an hour, provided the girl does the job right. Last time I told her I wanted a French manicure in another color. I swear she looked at me like—”

      “No.” The last thing Lora wanted was to stand around like a schoolgirl waiting for her mother to pick her up. “I’ll walk over to the dealership and ride home with Dad.”

      She heard her mother’s “but” as she closed the door. With Isadore, there was never an end to conversation, only abrupt halts.

      It frightened Lora to think she might end up like her mother, constantly harping on something of no importance. Before the divorce, when Dan wanted to really land a blow, he’d mention how much she sounded like her mother.

      With determined steps, Lora forced herself not to run as she heard the sound of the window being lowered. At five foot СКАЧАТЬ