Recipe for a Good Life by Lesley Crewe

Author:Lesley Crewe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781774712092
Publisher: Nimbus
Published: 2023-06-27T18:10:29+00:00

* * *

Bertha didn’t sleep most of the night. When Ethel knocked on the front door at eight o’clock in the morning, she wasn’t best pleased.

“Ethel, it’s too early to be here. Go home and come back later. You should be with your sister, anyway. Since you’re here, take her some of these blueberry muffins.” She scurried around to get the muffins into a tin.

“I tossed and turned until dawn,” Ethel said. “What happened to Kitty? Why did she leave without saying goodbye? Something dreadful must have happened.”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t add any information on that score.”

“But Wallace must know. That’s probably why he looked so upset yesterday. And there he was, trying to help us at the same time.”

Bertha firmly put the muffins in Ethel’s hands. “Wallace has said nothing to me, and even if he did, I would not be telling you. Now go home and take care of Winnie. It looks like a miserable day out there, and I’m tired. I’m going back to bed.”

“That’s a first. Okay, but if you need me…”

“I know where to find you.”

“I’m going to miss Kitty,” Ethel said sadly.

Bertha could only nod her head as she closed the door. She ended up in her chair and started to knit mittens for her grandchildren’s Christmas stockings. She woke herself up with a snore. Great, now she had a kink in her neck. The mantel clock indicated it was after ten. No wonder her neck was sore.

Yawning, she put her wool away and went to the bathroom before she headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Wallace was at the table with mug in hand, eating the last of a muffin.

She decided to be nonchalant. “Good morning. Is there still tea in the pot?”

He nodded.

She busied herself making a poached egg on toast. Wallace was silent. Two could play that game. She gathered her breakfast together and even squeezed herself some fresh orange juice. Then she sat at the table, opened the paper, and read it as she ate, completely ignoring the large, gloomy presence on the other side.

She was halfway through a crossword puzzle when he finally spoke.

“Mom?”

Her eyes never left the puzzle. “Yeah?”

“What do you do when you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life?”

She looked up. “She was never yours to begin with.”

“That’s not the problem. I took something from her. The one thing that meant the most.”

Bertha put down her pencil. “What are you talking about?”

He rubbed his eyes. “She asked me to read her new book, because she valued my opinion. I read it and promptly went over and told her she shouldn’t publish it. Of course, she was furious and told me to get out. Then Winnie happened and I realized what a self-righteous fool I was and rushed home to tell her that, but she was gone.”

“I talked to her editor last night. She was desperate to get ahold of her.”

“That’s because the editor called her yesterday to say she loved the book and Kitty was really happy about it.

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