What Family Means. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ but I still think you’d gain a lot out of recording your life for your kids and your future grandkids.”

      I smiled.

      “You may be right.” I shrugged into my coat and offered my best smile to the group. “See you next week. Call me if anything really stumps you.”

      They often asked me for help with their knitting, since I was the only professional knitter in the group.

      I loved them because we shared so much more than knitting. But this morning the sharing cut too close….

      These women were special to me because they loved me for me. They knew I was a “famous” fiber artist but accepted me as one of them. A woman with a family she’d fight to the death for.

      The wind that greeted me as I exited the coffee shop was chillier than it’d been a half hour earlier. I looked up at the steel-gray clouds that seemed close enough to touch.

      “More darn snow,” I mumbled to myself. Mentally I went down my to-do list: check on Violet, then spend the rest of the day in my studio preparing for my upcoming art exhibition.

      I had just fastened my seat belt, hand poised to turn on the car stereo so I could listen to my favorite sixties station, when my phone buzzed again. Panic fluttered in my throat but was quelled when I saw the caller.

      Angie.

      “Hi, honey, everything okay?” I put her on speaker so I could back out of the parking lot.

      “Um, yeah, I’m fine. How are you?”

      Angie’s distracted tone didn’t alarm me. But her question about my well-being did. Usually her conversations were full of her latest career feats as a meteorologist, and her marriage to Jesse, the love of her life.

      “I’m fine, sweetheart. What’s up?”

      “Mom, can you meet me at the coffee shop this morning?”

      “Oh, I’d love to, but I’m just leaving the knitting group. I have to go back home and check on Vi.”

      “Is Grandma all right?” Angie’s voice rang clear and concerned over the car speaker.

      “I think so. She’s not getting any younger, and she needs a little extra TLC every now and then.”

      “Is it her heart?”

      “Honey, it’s always her heart at this point.” I turned the key in the ignition—February in Buffalo felt like Siberia. The heater cranked up as I did my best to reassure Angie that Vi was likely okay.

      “I really need to talk to you, Mom.” The little-girl tone was back.

      “Angie, are you okay?”

      “Of course. I just needed to talk. It’s been a huge transition for me, you know, Mom.”

      “Yes, it has.” She’d moved back to Buffalo from San Francisco, what, only a month ago?

      “Can you call me when you’re done with Grandma Vi?”

      “Sure thing, sweetheart. Maybe we can meet for lunch.”

      “Thanks, Mom.”

      “Bye.”

      I sighed and put the phone in the compartment between the large bucket front seats. I was so thrilled to have Angie home again. I just needed Brian to move here and I’d finally have all my chicks back in the nest—or at least near it. My family around me—everything I needed for happiness.

      But that was before I knew Angie had decided to make her move alone, while Jesse was deployed to Iraq with a civilian surgical augmentation team. Before I realized that Vi’s congestive heart failure was changing from chronic to acute, needing to be monitored daily.

      Women’s magazine pundits called us the “sandwich” generation. Still raising or supporting our children and tending to our aging parents.

      I silently counted my blessings as I put the car in gear. Gratitude was my antidote to the despair that could overwhelm me when I least expected it to.

      First, all our children were economically independent. Second, they all had good careers and two out of three had chosen loving partners. Third, Violet was financially taken care of, with the best possible medical care.

      And most important, I had Will.

      Present Day

       Buffalo, New York

      “HEY, HOW’S IT GOING?” Angie Bradley slid onto the stool next to her younger brother Blair’s at the breakfast bar. He and his wife, Stella, had refurbished this downtown loft apartment three years ago, as newlyweds.

      “Are you hungry? I’ve got plenty of oatmeal left.” Stella smiled and Angie let the flash of her perfectly straight, white teeth send their happy energy her way. Stella was a pediatric dentist and her own smile was her best advertisement.

      “No, thanks.”

      Stella’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure? I even have real maple syrup.”

      Angie laughed.

      “No, thanks.” That was just like Stella, to remember that Angie liked the real stuff, not some flavored corn syrup. But her stomach couldn’t cope with much of anything at the moment.

      “You’re not on a diet, are you?” Blair was five years her junior but acted like her big brother more often than not. Like his twin, Brian, Blair had followed in their dad’s footsteps and was an architect. But while Blair loved Buffalo and worked in Dad’s firm, Brian had left Buffalo for a position in Denver.

      Angie missed seeing both her brothers but was grateful to be facing just one of them at the moment.

      “No, I’m not on a diet…” She let her voice trail off. Blair nuzzled Stella’s neck.

      “Knock it off, Blair,” Stella said with a giggle.

      “Yeah, knock it off, or get a room. Geez.” Angie loved to tease her brothers.

      “How’s your new job?”

      “Great, good. It’s okay. You know, it always takes a while to get familiar with a new place.”

      “I’m sure they’re excited to have you on the team.” Stella poured coffee into a brick-red mug.

      “Here—it’s the morning blend from the café.”

      Angie looked at the mug but knew if it got too close she’d be in Blair and Stella’s downstairs bathroom in ten seconds flat.

      “No, uh, wait—” She shoved herself off the stool and made it to the bathroom door in six seconds, to be exact.

      “Come on. Be a big girl and go ’fess up,” she whispered to her pale reflection in the washroom mirror.

      She walked out of the bathroom and back into the СКАЧАТЬ