Crossing Paths by Violet Howe

Author:Violet Howe [Howe, Violet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732121553
Publisher: Charbar Productions

Chapter 47

William

Patricia pulled the lid off the plastic container and grabbed a chocolate chip cookie from inside it.

“You sure you don’t want one?”

I shook my head, and she held the cookie between her teeth as she closed the lid, pausing to grab another at the last moment before pushing the container to the back of the counter. I swear my sister had consumed more sugar in her lifetime than an entire candy factory could produce, and yet she was reed-thin and as healthy as a thoroughbred horse.

She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and sat back down across from me at her kitchen table. “So, how did Ma and Dad take the news?”

“Exactly like I thought they would. Ma cried, and Dad got up and went out on the front porch without saying anything.”

My father had always been a man of few words, and he’d been known to go silent for days if he was angry or upset. He only raised his voice in the direst of circumstances. I’d seen it happen a very few times in my life, and I’d been the cause of it on three occasions.

The first was when I was seven and shoved Patricia off a curb in town while goofing around. She’d nearly been hit by a car, and I don’t know what scared us most—the car’s horn blaring as the driver swerved to miss her or the unfamiliar roar of my father’s voice as he swooped her into his arms and yelled at me for being careless.

The second was the morning after Catherine and I fell asleep on the beach when I brought my brother’s truck home hours after I was expected. My mother had been certain I was lying in a ditch somewhere needing help, and my father’s fear for my safety coupled with dealing with his wife’s panic pushed him over the edge when he saw that I was not injured, just irresponsible.

The third time was only a couple of weeks later when I told my parents I was quitting college and giving up the full-ride grant in order to work and save for Catherine’s return.

“Have you lost your damned mind?” he had thundered, his face white with rage. “This is insanity! You’re throwing away your future. You’ve been handed an education, and you’re tossing it aside, for what? For some girl who’s got her nose so high in the sky it’s a wonder she doesn’t drown when it rains.”

“I love her,” I’d said, standing with my shoulders squared and my fists clenched, trying to hide the fact that I was trembling in the face of his wrath.

“Love? You have no idea what love is. What you have is called lust and stupidity. You’re thinking with the wrong head, son! You got a little taste of something that’s made you go all crazy and you can’t even think straight. Didn’t you learn anything from your brother Henry?”

Henry had married his pregnant girlfriend a month after they graduated from high school, and

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