In Every Flower (The Garden Gates Series Book 3) by Hill Patti

Author:Hill, Patti [Hill, Patti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

~*~

I sat in Scott's chair in the dark, waiting for Larry to come home. Ky had sulked up to his room an hour earlier and cranked up his stereo. I wasn't about to make the volume an issue. Besides, the carping beat of the music fed my anger. How dare Larry hit my son and sit down to eat a meal without telling me!

Unbidden, another day billowed the folds of my memories, the day Andrea had picked up Ky from school and taken him for ice cream. At the time, I'd only known her as the Earring Girl, and there she was chummying up to my son. I slapped her hard across the face for saying that Scott was her father. The mark of Larry's hand had already vanished from Ky's cheek. And really, it didn't take much imagination to see Scott doing the very same thing in light of Ky's insolence.

But that was Scott. This was Larry. I tried to pray. I asked God to give me wisdom and courage, but I was too busy flagellating myself for believing Larry's gentle‑giant act. The thrumming music pressed me to ask scary questions.

Should I ask Larry to leave?

Maybe I should take Ky to a shelter before Larry gets home.

Am I being melodramatic?

Definitely. Maybe not. I doubt it.

Don’t be reckless !

The sound of Connie's car idling in the driveway stopped the questions. A car door slammed, and a moment later, the kitchen door clicked open. Larry walked through the dark house softly calling my name. The floor creaked under his weight in the kitchen, the family room, and down the hall. I pulled myself into a tight ball to sit unseen in the darkness. He stood with his hand on the newel post and one foot on the bottom stair, listening.

"You have some explaining to do," I said.

He sat on the edge of the sofa, the seat farthest from me, shoulders rounded. "I'm not proud of what happened," he said, his voice low and rough.

"You shouldn't be."

"He needled me, Mib."

"So you hit him?"

"At first he complained about having to work in the heat. That didn't bother me. I'd expected it. Then he questioned the masculinity of a man having a flower garden. I knew he was goading me. I gave him a history lesson about Cato, a military leader in Rome who catalogued cultivars." He wiped his hands on his pants and laced his fingers together. "By then I was pretty ticked, but I held it together. Then he made lewd comments about us. If he had been any other man—"

"But he isn't any other man. He's my son."

"He's getting out of hand, Mib."

"He's lost his father, and now his mother has married a—"

"Stop right there unless you're going to call me a frustrated man because that's all I am. I don't deserve a label for what happened today."

"You don't deserve a medal, either."

"No, I don't. I blew it; I admit that. But rather than talk about it now, I think we should—"

"We're talking about it now.

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