Every Last Minute (Time Wrecker Trilogy Book 1) by Ellen Smith

Author:Ellen Smith [Smith, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ESW Books
Published: 2017-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

Down two blocks and over one, the farmer’s market was in full swing. Mara abandoned her daydream and walked in lazy circles around the stalls. It was early in the season for produce, but a few people had managed to scrape together offerings from their gardens and greenhouses. One couple was selling gallon-size plastic bags filled with salad greens. Another woman was proudly displaying handicrafts she’d made with her sister. Little ceramic boxes and wood carvings, mostly.

Mara stopped by a table with bunches of flowers. Even though she couldn’t pick from Grandmary’s garden anymore, smelling the heady, earthy scent of the farmer’s market helped to make up for it. Mara counted out enough change to pay for a small bundle of pink peonies. There were only six, but the large, fluffy heads filled out the bouquet. They bobbed and nodded on the weak stems as she started the long walk back to the Metro station.

Mara liked to think that she would have learned to garden if they’d kept the house. Truthfully, she hadn’t exactly inherited Grandmary’s green thumb. Transferring seedlings to larger pots, pruning, and other once-a-season tasks had been easy enough. It was the daily upkeep that she fell behind on. Grandmary plucked weeds the moment they appeared instead of waiting for them to grow thick stalks and to weave their roots under the flower beds. She knew when the soil was too dry or when aphids were beginning to invade her rosebushes.

Mostly, Mara had spent her summers and weekends reading on Grandmary’s front steps while her grandmother tended to the garden. Mara would sit so still that passersby sometimes thought she was a little garden statue. Neighbors would come by to chat with Grandmary, not registering Mara at all until she coughed or turned a page.

“Who’s that?” they would exclaim.

“My granddaughter Mara,” Grandmary would answer with evident pride.

“Ah. Adopted?”

“She looks like her mother. Isn’t she a beauty?” Grandmary would say firmly, stopping any further comments with a coldly polite stare. Mara’s cheeks would burn anyway.

Once, there had been a neighbor who didn’t let it go. “And where’s her mother from? China? I went to high school with a Chinese girl. Nice girl. So polite.”

Grandmary had waited an extra beat before responding, “Mara’s mother is originally from Los Angeles.”

“But her parents are from—”

“Los Angeles.”

After that neighbor left, Grandmary had taken off her gardening gloves and sat on the porch step beside Mara. Grandmary was never the first to talk. Mara liked that.

After a minute, Mara had leaned on Grandmary’s shoulder. It smelled like Grandmary even perspired perfume. “I don’t look like anyone,” Mara had said. “I don’t look all-Japanese like Mom and I don’t look white like you and Dad.”

“You look like Mara Elizabeth Gaines to me,” Grandmary had said.

“I don’t want to look like me,” Mara said, warming up and feeling sorry for herself. “Mom says I should just tell people I’m American, but they keep asking. You heard.”

“And what does your father say?”

“He says to ask Mom about this stuff.

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