Seeing Things by Patti Hill

Author:Patti Hill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2009-08-20T22:00:00+00:00

SUZANNE LICKED HER FINGERS. “I haven’t had a cookie like this since . . . before my parents divorced.”

“I didn’t know. That must have been difficult for you.”

“Not really. My parents fought all the time. Dad had issues. My mother found a wonderful man almost immediately, and he opened the world to us.”

“How old were you?”

“Six. I was in first grade. I remember because I had to change schools, and I loved Miss Baker with all my heart.”

“How fortunate your mother found a man who loved you. My parents didn’t divorce, but my ma died. Two months later Pa brought home Flora Blumgaurd. If he had looked the world over for the one woman who got under my craw and stayed there, he found her. Needless, to say, she wasn’t anything like Ma.”

“How did your mother die?” Suzanne asked with an unfamiliar softness.

“She died of sepsis. Her appendix burst. Pa tried to get a doctor to the station. He rode for two days through the snow, but the doctor got there too late. He was on the other side of the valley delivering a baby.”

“Who cared for your mother while your father went for a doctor?”

“I did. I was thirteen. My sister, Evelyn, she didn’t handle illness well. I tried to lower the fever with cool cloths, just like Ma had done for me. Evelyn brought in buckets of snow to melt.” Ma’s face, twisted in pain, came to mind unbeckoned. No matter how many quilts I had piled on her, she shook with chills. Her skin had yellowed like an old newspaper with a bloodred rash dotting her skin. “I couldn’t do anything for her pain.”

“You were so young. I can’t imagine.”

The tenderness of Suzanne’s words slit my defenses. “I’ve never told this to a soul, but I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving when she finally slipped away.”

“Your father had no business leaving you like that.”

“I don’t blame him. He was the only one strong enough to go. It nearly killed him to leave us; I saw it in his eyes.” I rubbed my temples where a headache threatened. I rubbed harder. “By default, I became the woman of the house, or queen of the house, if you’d asked Evelyn. Flora stepped into an impossible situation. More than anything I wish I’d swallowed all the hateful words I slung at her. I considered her nothing less than demonic for taking Ma’s place. And my pa, we’d been so close. He became a stranger to me, so I hated him too. Oh, the pain I inflicted on my poor, grieving father, trying to do his best to provide for his daughters. As a ranger, he traveled for weeks at a time into the back country doing wildlife studies, patrolling for poachers, rescuing lost hikers. I thought I could take care of myself and Evelyn, but he did the right thing bringing Flora to us.”

Suzanne laid her head on the counter. “Being a stepmother is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I never dreamed .

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