A Special Kind Of Family. Eileen Berger

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “But she’s trying to do too much—helping the three oldest with preparations for GEDs, making sure the younger ones keep up with their homework, seeing that each one does her part with laundry, cleaning and other tasks….”

      “Does she seem overwhelmed?”

      “No, she doesn’t, and I admire her for that.”

      There was the briefest of pauses. “Just go easy, dear.”

      He shouldn’t be surprised, but hadn’t expected her to sense his—love? Infatuation? “I took food for the first day, takeouts from the steak house.” He chose not to mention staying to eat that night or the next one! “Aggie Seaforth prepared today’s.”

      They spoke of a number of things, but near the end she came back to their initial topic. “When you see Gram or Vanessa again, tell them they’re in our prayers. All of them are….”

      The call to the deceased man’s son took only a few minutes as Rob reassured him that someone would be directing traffic at each of the two major intersections on Broad Street, so cars in the slow funeral procession would not get separated.

      Also, there’d probably be no difficulty adding another person who wished to share memories at the service, but this should be discussed with their pastor right away. And it was, of course, too late to have his name on the printed memorial folder.

      He was smiling as he made the third call. Betty was four or five years younger than Vanessa and himself, twenty-five or twenty-six. He remembered her in Youth Fellowship during the last year or two before he left for college, a bubbly, outgoing, bright-eyed redhead involved with every program and service project.

      She married Paul Jefferson soon after high school graduation, and they now had a four-year-old son, a two-year-old daughter and an infant. “Thanks for calling back,” she greeted, “though you may be sorry you did.”

      He laughed. “I promise to at least give you the chance to tell about it before I hang up.”

      “I thought you might—hoped so, anyway. I was talking with Miz Aggie, and she said you delivered her dinner to Gram’s. Right?”

      He’d already guessed what she wanted and quickly offered to deliver the dinner she would prepare the following day.

      He slowly set down the phone. His shoulders were straight and head high as he sat down in the tall-backed oak chair and glanced at the many cubicles in his antique rolltop desk. As good as he felt right now, he should be able to zip through the paperwork which had accumulated over the past two days. If only he could keep from thinking about Vanessa for just a little while….