The Best Gift by Markham Wendy

Author:Markham, Wendy [Markham, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Craes, LLC
Published: 2013-11-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

“This is definitely our lucky day,” Drew tells Clara as he sets the emergency brake and turns off the engine.

Not only did they manage to zip over the Golden Gate Bridge with minimal traffic, but the fog lifted as they reached the Bay area, giving way to crisp late morning sunshine. Even better, there’s actually a curbside parking spot on the steep street right alongside his parents’ home.

“I just hope it stays lucky,” Clara replies cryptically, and he looks at her in surprise.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

She offers a smile, but it’s forced. “I was just kidding.”

No, she wasn’t.

“What’s up with you today?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly—too quickly. “Why?”

“You seem like you’re on edge.”

Yes, and he realizes she’s been pretty quiet ever since he woke up to find her in the living room, curled up on the couch and watching the Weather Channel. She informed him—not that he’d asked—that it was going to be a cloudy, foggy day, but that tomorrow will be sunny and beautiful.

“I’m tired, that’s all,” she tells him now. “We were up all night. I was, anyway. I don’t know how you went right back to sleep after that earthquake.”

“It was just an aftershock.” He opens the car door. “And it’s not good for you to lose sleep now that you’re resting for two.”

“I know, but I couldn’t help it.” She yawns. “I promise I’ll take a nap for two later. How’s that?”

“Good plan.”

Drew climbs out of the car. By the time he reaches the passenger side, his wife is already out on the sidewalk. She looks smaller than usual somehow, huddled into a thick tweed coat with a red scarf swaddled around her neck against the chill.

“You’re supposed to let me be a gentleman,” he scolds her. “Especially now that you’re . . .”

“What? Getting out of the car for two?”

“Exactly.” He locks the car with a double-chirp of the keys and drapes an arm around her shoulder.

Together, they head toward the three-story Queen Anne Victorian.

Like the others on the block, its sloping foundation is diagonal, aligned with the street’s steep grade. It’s a classic San Francisco painted lady, butter-colored with dark green, sage, and ocher trim.

When Drew was growing up, it was festooned in shades of rose and mauve. It wasn’t easy being the boy who lived in the pink gingerbread house with three larger-than-life older sisters, crazy Aunt Stella, and a doting mother who once approached him on the Little League field when he was on deck, swinging, and dabbed at his face with a spit-dampened lace hankie.

Somehow, when he was about thirteen, Drew convinced his father that his life would be a lot easier if they painted the house a more manly hue. Somehow, his father convinced his mother to go along with it. Somehow, his mother convinced the two of them that pastel yellow was more manly.

And somehow, Drew survived despite it all.

That reminds him—Clara wants to paint the baby’s room pastel yellow. Maybe he’ll try to talk her into navy. Or hunter green.

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