The Wedding Party by Robyn Carr

Author:Robyn Carr [Carr, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Stephanie insisted on a final cup of coffee with her dad, even though he was clearly tired to the bone. Good sport that he was, he gave her another half hour, because he knew she wasn’t ready to go home and face the rest of the night wondering what was going to become of Peaches. They sat in the deserted hospital coffee shop, sipping on vending-machine coffee that had a distinctly cardboard taste.

“It’s just that she’s had such a tough life,” Stephanie said. “I hate to see her wrap it up like this—confused and disoriented and constantly getting lost or hurting herself. I wished for her a rockin’ old age.”

“Yeah, well, it’s pretty much rocked up to now, wouldn’t you say?” Jake wanted to know.

Stephanie shrugged. “I think there have been some perks these past few years, now that Mom’s doing better financially and I’m out of school. There were a couple of trips, a couple of retreats. But up until then it was work, work, work.”

“The way of the world, my princess,” Jake said. He had that look on his face; it was so like Charlene’s look. That When do you suppose she’s going to get it? look.

“Come on, you know what I mean—the whole single-mother thing. She not only raised Mom by herself, she then mostly raised me. If she wasn’t actually doing the baby-sitting, she was helping to pay for the baby-sitter. And all this on a librarian’s wage.”

Jake looked a little perplexed. “I understand your grandfather traveled a lot while your mom was growing up—”

“That’s what Mom likes people to think. That’s what she even told me—‘Your grandpa was in a traveling band and we learned to get along without a man around all the time.’ But if you ask Peaches, my grandpa was a real flimflam man. He probably only spent a year in total with Mom and Peaches her whole life.”

Jake gave Stephanie his full attention, and he looked more than a little bit surprised.

“Peaches took the bus to work until I was in junior high. Mom had a car before Peaches did.”

He sat up a little straighter. “Your mom’s father wasn’t around at all when she was growing up?”

“Hardly at all. Peaches said Mom adored him. She used to sit on the front step and wait for him, used to haunt the mailbox for letters that never came. It broke Peaches’s heart, but there wasn’t much she could do. She didn’t think it would be better to refuse to let Charlene see her father at all.”

“No, I don’t suppose. It’s so funny I never knew any of this.”

“Well, since you and Mom didn’t stay married for even a year…”

“I remember when your granddaddy died. You were about to be born. I wanted to go with your mom to where he was buried, but she didn’t want me with her. I was worried about her, what with her being so pregnant with you. But Peaches said she’d be all right, that I should let her have her way.

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