Calling Home by Janna McMahan

Author:Janna McMahan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2008-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

20

Virginia slipped a spatula under the potatoes and flipped them over, revealing a crispy brown side. Tiny spatters of grease popped out and stung her hand, but she didn’t flinch. It somehow felt right to sprinkle her skin with pinpricks of pain. She was a mother and she had to wake up—to make Shannon something to eat before practice. She’d been such a bad mother the past few weeks. But Patsy had been filling in, taking an interest in Shannon and the pageant, and for that Virginia was grateful. When Patsy moved in she had thought she and her sister would end up hating each other.

There seemed to be some unwritten rule in this town that you had to be best friends with all your family, but Virginia doubted that she would ever have chosen her sisters—not Lovey nor Patsy nor Margie—to be her buddies if given other options. But people rarely got choices about the big things in life. Important decisions got made for you. Most folks accepted that and did the best with what they were handed.

Virginia turned the potatoes onto a plate and put them on the table. It wasn’t much, but it was all she could manage right now. She used to like to cook, was good at knowing how hot something needed to be to get a good browning, or when to turn out fudge so that it set solid instead of being too soft. But there was nobody to cook for anymore—only a sister who shouldn’t eat much and a teenager who never did. She had made nearly every bite that had gone into Will’s and Roger’s mouths. When they were out on their own all they ate was pickle bologna, but they always came home for supper. Roger had a talent for being gone all day and coming home at the exact moment she was taking rolls out of the oven.

Virginia tried hard to have them sit down to a family meal at least once a day, but as the children got older it became harder. Now she had no reason to cook, no family to gather around the table, which might have been a good thing since everything tasted bland. She kept adding salt and still nothing turned out like it should. She’d dropped off to where she was nearly the same size she was in high school. But what good would it do a woman to be thin except to attract a man, which was the last thing she wanted. Jim had been coming around, bringing her flowers to cheer her up. She’d finally sent him away.

His eyes told her that he had been expecting her rebuff, had figured there was no way she could get past his role in her son’s death. She told Jim that she didn’t blame him, but that she would always wonder if he could have done more to save Will. They had parted on good terms. She thought of Jim frequently, but then thoughts of Will would shove themselves into her head and she was down for the rest of the day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.