Becky Meets Her Match by Linda Byler

Author:Linda Byler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Good Books
Published: 2016-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

AND SO THAT WINTER BECKY FACED SOME tough choices.

January was bitterly cold and filled with endless swirling, biting snow that drifted around the barn in tight piles. It required hours of hard shoveling just to keep the path to and from the house open.

Salome’s needs tugged at her heart.

Soon after the family Christmas, Becky visited Harold Epstein in Room 116 at the Round Oaks facility. It was the first of many more visits. His voice shook as he took them both back to a gentler time when the world was a simpler place. Becky loved to sit at his side, listening to the gravelly voice unfold the years of his life. It seemed as if that alone was all he needed. A listening ear, a caring heart.

She would sing to him or read from his books of poetry or the Bible, passages he loved from Isaiah or the Psalms. Always he would beg her to stay only a bit longer, and always she would.

He asked the administrator if she could apply for a job, but was told firmly, that no, not without her GED. Company policy.

Harold was not happy about this at all and said he was going to speak to his daughters about moving.

Then they found the message on voicemail.

Salome had had a breakdown. A nervous breakdown. Her nerves were completely shattered.

Mam spent hours on the phone. She sat with Dat late at night, discussing the situation.

Evidently, Mommy had been showing signs of dementia before Christmas, which was behind Mam’s confusion about her letter, followed by her refusal to come on the bus. Daudy’s bedsores had worsened to the point that he was taken to the hospital for extensive care. Then Mommy boiled a jar of pickles, thinking she was heating green beans to eat with her supper of stewed crackers.

She blamed Salome for hiding Daudy from her on purpose, telling her she finally got her way after years of trying to get Daudy away from her.

This all happened when Henry went to New Jersey for a few days with a group of men to help rebuild from storm damage, leaving Salome with far too much on her shoulders. The neighbor lady who was to help proved to be unreliable, even hostile. So Salome sat on the couch and began to cry and couldn’t stop.

Mary still went to market but helped more than she used to. Rachel took most of her parents’ care on herself, but clearly, there was a huge need.

Becky told Mam she would go. She said the words with her mouth, but her heart was not in it. She didn’t know her grandparents, and the Lancaster cousins seemed as annoying as children, the inconsistency of their silly lives as senseless as too thin vanilla pudding.

Becky had tried hard to fit in with them, but she just couldn’t quite make it. What if she got all the way to Lancaster and remained an outsider, having to live with a mentally unstable Salome? What would she do

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