Roses in Autumn by Donna Fletcher Crow

Author:Donna Fletcher Crow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nazarene Publishing House
Published: 2012-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The next morning Laura drank an extra cup of strong tea to sustain her for the ordeal ahead. Then she placed the phone call to her mother before she lost her nerve. She sat biting on her fingernails as the phone rang in her ear.

“Hello, Mama. This is Laura.”

“Laura, honey! What a nice surprise. How are you?” She was shocked when she heard her mother’s voice across the wire. It wasn’t the harsh, condemning voice of her conscience that memory brought back to her. She heard simply the quiet, southern drawl of an old woman. Laura hadn’t realized her mother was getting old. She always thought of her just as she had been all those years ago—straight and sure and vigorous.

They visited for a few minutes about Laura’s trip and the warm weather in Texas. She hadn’t talked to her mother in months, yet they could have spent the whole time discussing the weather and the flowers her mother arranged for the church altar. Laura took a deep breath. “Mama, I need to talk to you. Really talk. About something serious. I’ve been seeing a—er, a doctor here—”

“Laura, baby, are you sick?” Laura felt more than heard the fear in her mother’s voice.

“No, Mama. It’s not that kind of doctor. I’m not sick, but my marriage is—”

“Laura! You and that man aren’t getting a—divorce?” The last word was almost whispered, as if someone might be listening at the door.

“I certainly hope not. I’m doing everything I can to prevent it. And his name is Tom, Mama. Now, please, don’t interrupt. This is very hard for me to say—but Dr. Larsen said I had to talk to you about this because a lot of the problems are caused by the way I was raised—”

“I raised you to be a good, God-fearing girl, young lady, and there’s nothing wrong with that! Are you seeing one of those secular humanists? I’ve been hearing preachers talk about them on television—”

“Mama! I said don’t interrupt. Now you’ve got to know that because you taught me that sex was bad—even with my husband—Tom and I have never been as happy as we could have been—as we should be.”

Across the miles Laura could see the thin lips tightening. “Laura, if you’ve called me to talk dirty, I won’t have it. I always did what I thought was best for you. I tried so hard to protect you. Maybe I tried too hard. But if I did, it was because I love you—because I didn’t want anything terrible to spoil your life like—” She stopped so abruptly that for a moment Laura thought they’d been cut off.

“Mama? Are you there? You didn’t want anything terrible to spoil my life like what?”

“Like anything dirty or sordid. I didn’t want anything like that to come near my daughter. Laura, I loved you so much. You were such a beautiful baby. And you were all I had. After everyone—” Again, the abrupt halt.

“Everyone what, Mama? There’s something you’re not telling me, and I need to know.

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