Angel Dreams by Chris Schneider

Angel Dreams by Chris Schneider

Author:Chris Schneider
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2015-09-15T00:00:00+00:00


TWENTY-NINE

THE WYOMING CHILDREN’S HOME

Eaglescliff, Thursday August 28, 1947

Alone again in the familiar hotel room that had been her home for more than a week, Janet sat down and tried to think. This threw a bombshell into the middle of everything!

Over and over the words she had just read replayed themselves in her brain.

Leslie Payne is survived by a son who was remanded to the care of the Wyoming Children’s Home pending investigation of the father’s whereabouts.

Survived by a son…

Survived by a son…

A son! thought Janet. Leslie’s baby hadn’t died in the hospital. Leslie had given birth to a son.

That made her a grandmother!

The thought was so new, so huge, so jolting, it took several minutes for her brain to take it in. She sat in the quiet room trying to absorb it.

From somewhere the words filtered into her brain. Don’t give up, Janet. Don’t give up.

They came as a whisper. She repeated them to herself, then again.

If he was still at the home, her grandson might be less than a mile away at this very moment! Then more words she remembered hearing somewhere returned from out of her memory. If the mountain won’t come to you, you have to go to the mountain.

She had to go to the orphanage and try to find him…Leslie’s son…her own grandson!

The rest of that evening and night passed as slowly as if the sand in the hourglass was thick black molasses. How much Janet slept, she could not tell. She dozed on and off, but always came awake, startled anew by the electric thought in her brain that she had a grandson.

Gradually the thin light of a gray dawn outside began to show glimmers of light. On it came. Slowly…slowly. At last Janet could stand the waiting not a minute more. The clock beside her bed read six-forty-seven, but she could not lay in bed another second. This was the second morning she had awaken with the knowledge that both her husband and daughter were dead. The pain was more overwhelming than anything she had ever experienced.

Yet in the midst of her grief, perhaps she wasn’t alone. Up and down and around and back and forth her emotions bounced between heartbreak and hope like the ball of a pinball machine.

She tried to calm herself with a hot bath. She walked into the hotel dining room a little after seven-thirty. Most of the regulars she had come to recognize over the past few days were all in their customary places, some finishing their breakfasts, the later arrivals just wandering in.

She sat down at one of the small single tables she had gradually claimed as her own.

“Good morning, Mrs. Holiday,” said the pleasant middle-aged waitress with graying brown hair who was always on hand at the breakfast hour. “Still with us, I see. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

She returned shortly and poured out a cup and set it in front of Janet. “And for breakfast?” she said.

“I think just one egg, scrambled, and toast,” replied Janet.



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