Secrets of the Lotus by Michelle Garren Flye

Author:Michelle Garren Flye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Published: 2010-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Josie didn’t anticipate anyone welcoming her at the tiny airport in New Bern and she wasn’t disappointed. When she’d called her mother’s home phone with her flight information, she’d gotten the machine. She rented a compact car and began the hour-long drive to Beaufort.

Her hometown had changed little during Josie’s lifetime. A tourist attraction for nearly forty years, the streets were quiet now. March still tended to be too cold to attract the large yachts and pleasure boats filling the spots in the marina once held by fishing boats. Josie took a deep breath, trying not to remember running along the boardwalk with her brother as they searched for the wild ponies on Shackleford Banks and dreamed of a day they might own one of the sailboats anchored off-shore.

“Take a deep breath,” Josie muttered to herself as she turned onto the quiet street she’d grown up on. The street was lined with vehicles, mostly SUVs and minivans. Josie found a spot three doors down from her mother’s house and followed the broken, hilly sidewalk. Grass forced itself between the slabs of concrete, and Josie stepped carefully over a spider web of cracks. She remembered the old childhood rhyme she’d chanted along this very street: Step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back. Her wheeled suitcase bumped merrily behind her.

The front door was open and Josie could see her aunt and several cousins sitting around the living room. A white bow adorned the glass door. Josie watched her hand reach out for the knob, saw white faces in the semidarkness of the living room turn to her. Her mother was not there, but her aunt and several cousins rose when she entered. The moment of greeting came and went quickly, and the cousins left soon afterward. Josie sat on the couch next to her aunt, a warm cup in her hands.

“Your coffee will get cold, dear,” Rachel said.

Josie set her drink aside, and Rachel picked it up and placed a coaster under it. “I can’t drink it,” Josie said. “It’s too hot. Why are you having a heat wave in March?”

“It’s only sixty degrees.”

“It’s got to be warmer than that.” Josie stood and paced over to the window. “Where’s Mom?”

“In the bedroom.” Rachel glanced at the hallway, lowering her voice a little. “She’s been spectacular through this whole thing, Josie. You should be proud of her.”

“So she’s handling it okay?”

Her aunt stood, gathering plates and mugs from the coffee table but not meeting Josie’s eyes. “She’s doing all right. This is a terrible ordeal for a mother.” Her voice broke and Josie saw she was fighting tears. “She’ll be better with you here, I think.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d think that.” Josie struggled with her own bitterness, trying to remember the mother who’d raised her, taking her on frequent trips to the park and the beach, seeing to it she got a good education and could make her own way in the world, instead of the woman she fought with so often.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.