Twenty Lovers in my Hope Chest by C J Maust

Author:C J Maust [Maust, C J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: selfpublishing.com
Published: 2024-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter eighteen

Christopher - FB I Desperation

You can’t imagine how many times I wanted to say “I told you so, Edie. That trip to Seattle was a bad idea and didn’t do Daniel any good either.” But that would be like rubbing salt into her wound and though we usually spoke our mind and didn’t hold back from each other, I kept my mouth shut. She was free from Daniel. She felt badly saying it that way but she told me this story and it’s hard to forget.

“Having him around made me feel like an old dog we had when I was a kid. That dog had killed one of mother’s chickens so to punish the dog, she tied the dead chicken around the dog’s neck for two days while it was tied to a tree as punishment for its transgression. I know I’m being melodramatic but Daniel was my dead chicken around my neck making sure I remembered my sin.” She would not soon forget those consequences.

Wanting to clear the slate, the girls and Edie planned to take a two-month vacation on the island, no work, just play and fun. They planned well and took everything they needed. They planted a garden in the fertile black soil for fresh vegetables, caught fish, dug clams, and took beef and chicken for the freezer. Their days consisted of caring for the grounds, planting flowers, swimming, boating, doing the laundry in an old washing machine on a side porch, and hanging it on a clothesline strung between the huge hackberry trees around the yard.

In the afternoon they’d lie in the hammocks and read for an hour or so. They didn’t have TV but they had a good radio so each night as the darkness fell they would listen to an old show called Tales from the Crypt. The girls would tremble and hide under their sheets but never wanted to turn it off until it was finished. They always announced they would never listen again but just as faithful as the setting sun, each night they would turn the spooky show on and shiver under their covers.

One evening they had just cooked some delicious catfish and corn on the outdoor grill and were eating their catch in the kitchen. Suddenly they heard sloshing footsteps coming through the great room toward the kitchen. Without a moment to react, they were stunned to see a man dripping wet and staring at them wiping the water from his face. Gaining her senses and sucking in a gasp, she realized it was Christopher. He must have swum the river. Edie was thirty years old so it had been three years since she violated his bed. As gut-wrenching as the day she handed him the locket from her neck and walked from his bedroom, shame hit her. It was impossible to hold back her emotions.

Tears spilled from her eyes as she looked into his. They had changed; the gentleness was gone, and the glow of knowing who he was had disappeared.

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.