The One She Left Behind. KRISTI GOLD

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СКАЧАТЬ before I could get on the road.” Suddenly she’d become the apologetic daughter again. Always ready to please, but never quite able to do enough. “I think I’ll grab that coffee,” she said as she dropped her purse onto the piano bench. “Can I get anyone anything?”

      Her mother turned away as May raised a trembling hand to her plump neck. “No, honey, we’ve eaten enough to kill a moose. Just help yourself.”

      Savannah couldn’t get away quickly enough. She’d surely suffocate if she had to stay two days, much less the planned two weeks. But she’d promised to remain for the reading of the will. Settle whatever needed to be settled, at least from a legal standpoint. She supposed her status as an attorney had as much to do with that as her role as a family member.

      Traveling down the corridor past the gallery of photos hanging on the knotty pine walls, Savannah stopped at the small table in the center of the hall and ran a hand over the age-yellowed lace covering. Everything was the same, including the vine-covered vase centered below her parents’ wedding photograph. In a fit of anger, she’d broken that vase, right after her mother had insisted Savannah stop hanging out with Sam because he only wanted “one thing.” She could see the veins where it had been glued back together, still carried the scar on her knee from a cut she’d gotten while trying to pick up the pieces, remembered her mother’s disapproval. Yes, some things never changed, and apparently her mother had been right—Sam had only wanted “one thing.”

      Making her way into the deserted kitchen, Savannah took the silver pot from the counter and poured a cup of coffee. She sat in one chair positioned around the small dinette, thankful for some time alone. The reality of her father’s death coupled with seeing Sam again was almost too much to handle, but she wouldn’t cry. At least not yet. Not until she was safely in bed, alone with her grief.

      A few moments later, May breezed into the room carrying two empty glasses that she set in the sink before regarding Savannah. “It’s been over five years since you’ve been here, honey. You should try to get along with your mama for both hers and your daddy’s sake.”

      She’d given up on that prospect in her teens, and it had been seven years, not five, since her last trip home, something she didn’t care to point out. “I know, May, but she doesn’t seem to be willing to call a truce. I just wish I knew what I did to cause her to hate me.” Aside from the typical teenage rebellion.

      May’s gaze snapped to hers. “She doesn’t hate you, honey. She loves you more than you realize. She’s just a hard woman to understand, but she’s a good woman.”

      Savannah couldn’t remember when she’d witnessed that goodness. On second thought, she did recall a time when Ruth Greer had been more affectionate, more like a real mother. Yet that had all come to an end not long after Savannah passed into puberty. “I’ve tried to understand her, Aunt May. Even now, I’m having trouble with that. She doesn’t seem to be at all upset that Dad’s gone.”

      May rinsed the glasses, set them on the drainboard and then wiped her hands on a dish towel. “People deal with their grief in different ways, Savannah. Ruth has seen a lot of loss and hardship in her lifetime. First, our daddy died when she was only ten and I was just a baby. Then Mama had only been married to Papa Don a couple of years before she went to be with the angels.”

      Oddly, Savannah had never met her stepgrandfather and her mother had rarely mentioned him at all. She didn’t even learn about his passing until her parents announced they were moving back to the farm in Placid. “I agree, losing two parents at such a young age is more loss than any child should have to endure.” But as far as she was concerned, that didn’t excuse a mother’s unexplained hostility directed at her own child.

      May claimed the chair across from Savannah and folded her hands on the cloth-covered surface. “Ruth practically raised me all by herself until she turned seventeen and married Floyd. When they decided to move to Knoxville, she took me with them. Lord knows she didn’t have to do that when she could’ve foisted me off on Granny Kendrick, God rest her soul, and that’s if she made it into heaven.”

      Savannah couldn’t help but smile when she thought about all the legendary stories involving her eccentric great-grandmother. “Why didn’t you stay here with Don?”

      May shook her head. “It was a sad state of affairs. To hear Ruth tell it, he took to the bottle after Mama died. He spent most of his days drunk and he wasn’t fit to take care of me, not that I remember much about him or that time since I was so young. I’m not sure he would’ve kept me around even if he had been sobered up. He never paid me much mind, both before and after we moved away. In fact, I spoke to him maybe twice in the years before he died. If I asked about him, your mama refused to say anything one way or the other.”

      Savannah suspected there could be a lot more to the stepfather story. “I realize how much you appreciate Mother, May, and I do understand why you would. But that doesn’t explain her attitude toward me.”

      May straightened and sent Savannah a disapproving look. “Like I said, she’s been through a lot. She had to get me raised before she even thought about having a baby of her own. That didn’t happen until years after I was grown and gone.” Her expression softened. “She was so happy when you were born, and so was your daddy. They’d waited so long for you.”

      How well Savannah knew that. She’d been the only girl in Placid High who had parents in their mid-fifties. But that didn’t really matter, especially where her father had been concerned. He’d always seemed so young for his age, and that made his passing even more difficult to accept.

      Feeling a sudden onset of fatigue as well as utter sorrow, Savannah feigned a yawn. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll go up to my room and read awhile before I turn in.” And attempt to check her cell phone, although coverage in the area was sketchy at best. That was okay. She hadn’t had a real vacation from work in years. They could do without her for a couple of weeks.

      May reached across the table and patted Savannah’s hand. “Tomorrow will be another long day, too, because I’m sure you’ll see your old friends. Rachel and Jessica are still around and, of course, there’s Sam—”

      “I’ve already seen him,” Savannah said abruptly, before adding, “I stopped by the diner for something to drink and he was coming in when I was going out.”

      “I hear he’s making a good living with the farm,”

      May continued. “In fact, he just bought a brand-new truck with all the bells and whistles.”

      As if she should care what Sam was driving these days. Besides, she’d already seen that new truck, and she hadn’t been impressed. “How nice.”

      “Did you know he married the Clements girl?” May asked, as if determined to cram Sam’s life down Savannah’s throat.

      She’d come by that knowledge after she’d left Placid, and it had hurt more than she’d cared to admit. Darlene Clements had been the girl from one county over whom Sam had taken to the prom instead of her. The same girl who’d relentlessly pursued him throughout their high school years. Obviously she’d caught him. “I’d heard that.”

      May sighed. “And their little girl is as precious as a puppy.”

      That she hadn’t heard. “I didn’t realize he had a daughter.”

      “She’s about six now,” May added. “And it’s such a shame that she comes from a broken home. Divorce is a terrible thing for a child to go through.”

      Divorce?

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