Across the Years by Tracie Peterson

Author:Tracie Peterson [Tracie Peterson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441203144
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next few weeks were spent in a routine that Ashley found much to her liking. Lavelle sat with Grandpa in the morning while Ashley took care of the house chores and sent Natalie off to school. Then around noon Ashley would relieve her aunt, and Lavelle would take care of her own needs. Near to the time when Natalie was due home from school, Lavelle would take over Grandpa’s care again, freeing Ashley to be there for Natalie. By evening Grandpa was usually fast asleep, completely worn-out from his efforts of trying to stay awake and communicate through the day. It was only at suppertime that he’d allow Ashley to give him a large dose of morphine, pleading with both her and Lavelle to understand that he needed to be cognizant for as long as he could stand the pain.

Near the end of the month, however, Ashley felt her neatly ordered world once again shift. A telegram arrived from her mother. After weeks abroad, her mother had finally returned to Baltimore to receive word that her father was dying. Lavelle received this information from friends who lived nearby and knew Ashley’s mother.

Ashley felt the wind go out of her at the words on the telegram. WILL ARRIVE ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH TO OVERSEE THIS MATTER.

The words pierced her heart. Her mother was making it clear she intended to take control of the situation.

“Well, we won’t allow it,” Lavelle said, trying to encourage Ashley. “Your mother will find us both much stronger than when she last saw us.”

“Have you not had contact with Mother these last eleven years?”

Lavelle brushed lint from her already immaculate navy blue dress. “There have been letters, but I only saw your mother once in that time. It was about four years ago. She and your father came to Los Angeles on business. She was greatly disappointed in the way in which I lived. I have only a modest home, not even as big as this one. I live very comfortably, but your mother was completely put off by it. She had hoped to step into Los Angeles society through my introduction. When she found that was not to be the case, she found other ways, of course.”

“Of course,” Ashley said.

“She did ask me whether or not I knew where Father had gone. Of course, I didn’t know. I think she might have even hired someone to find where he’d gone, but she never found out. I’m sure she went home from that trip very disappointed in me. It didn’t help matters at all that I’d become a Christian.”

I should become a Christian to spite Mother, if for no other reason, Ashley thought. But immediately she knew that would never work. She might lie to the world, but she couldn’t very well lie to God.

“Your mother said I was weak, just like Father. I’m sure that’s why she feels she must come and oversee matters now. But, Ashley, she has no power here except that which you give her.

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