Happily Ever After by Jen Melland

Author:Jen Melland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC

“Mama, are you busy today?”

“Nope.”

“Can I come over and paint your toenails and hang out for the morning?”

“If that’s what you want.”

I hear the challenge in her voice. “It is what I want. Is there anything you want me to bring?”

“A Diet Coke. I’m out.”

“See you soon.”

I’m nervous. In my mind this is the first adult-to-adult time I’ll have with Mama. I’d never noticed that it wasn’t that way before, but now that she’s pointed it out, the pressure is on to make this morning different. I have no idea how to do that, and I wonder if nail polish and Diet Coke are the right props. I send up prayers all the way over and knock before walking in.

I greet her the same way, put a Diet Coke on ice, and set up my pedicure station in the middle of the coffee table.

“What color is that?”

I proudly hold up the bottle. “Bought it just for this. Flamingo Pink!”

“Nice, Lark.”

“I’ve been wondering. I always thought you and Stanley met at church, but I never asked you how.”

“We didn’t meet at church.”

“Oh. Where’d you meet?”

“Guess.”

“Through friends?”

“No.”

“Supermarket?”

“Stanley doesn’t go to the supermarket if he can help it.”

“I don’t know! Coffee shop?”

She smiles at me, savoring this for some reason, and I laugh at her. She’s been more guarded lately, and I sense that she’s holding onto the last bit of reserve, but maybe I’m breaking through it.

“When you were busy with all the events of a high school senior, I realized I was about to be alone. I didn’t like that realization at all.”

I stop painting and ask, “So what did you do about it?”

“I went to the mall and I had one of those glamour photographers dress me up like some sort of madam and take my picture. Then I plastered it on two different dating websites.”

“Noooo! You did not!”

“I did.” She smiles, enjoying my reaction. “It was a wonder my picture didn’t scare him off. The lady at the studio put me in kelly green eye shadow and I looked like a plus-sized ice skater.”

“And you never told me!”

“Nope. Never did. Not the kind of thing I would have wanted you doing, baby.” She leans forward to admire my handiwork with Flamingo Pink. “And you didn’t ask.”

“Wow. What did the ad say?”

“Large, lovely, Christian woman who has to be met to be believed.”

“That’s true. You do have to be met to be believed. You know, Mama, I’d like to get to know Stanley, if you don’t think it’s too late.”

“Sure. He’s in the backyard. Go ask him if you can go shooting with him tomorrow after church.”

“Shooting?”

But she only raises her eyebrows in silent challenge, so I go.

Stanley is reading the newspaper while sitting in a folding lawn chair.

“Stanley? Um, could I go shooting with you tomorrow?”

He puts down the paper and nods slowly. “Reckon that’d be okay.” Stanley is a man of few words, but one of them is often reckon. “My friend Earle said I could use his land outside of town.

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