My Big Old Texas Heartache by Dawson Geralyn

Author:Dawson, Geralyn [Dawson, Geralyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-09T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

"What's wrong with Mom?" Ryan asked Adele as he set down his fishing pole and swiped a deviled egg from the platter on the picnic table. "All she's done since we got here is sit and stare out at the water."

Adele glanced up from a copy of Smithsonian magazine. The gold on her pineapple earrings glinted in the sunlight. "I think she and your grandfather had a fight earlier today."

"So what else is new?" Ryan popped the egg in his mouth, then grimaced. "Did you make these eggs, Adele?"

"No. One of The Widows brought them by yesterday. I didn't try one before I stuck them in our picnic cooler. Awful, aren't they?"

"Tastes like tuna. You think she put tuna in her deviled eggs?"

"I hope that's all it is. I'm worried about cat food, myself."

"Yew." Ryan reached for a Coke and drained half the can in one long slurp. His gaze flicked from his grandfather, who sat in a lawn chair on the dock, fishing pole in hand and tackle box at his feet, to his mother. "So what did they fight about this time? Coming out here, I bet. I think it's been good for him, though. Did you see him when he caught that black bass? That's the first time I've heard him laugh in a long time."

Adele filled a plastic cup with ice, then poured a glass of tea. "Here," she said, handing it to Ryan. "Take this to your mom. Tell her I said she's brooded long enough."

Carrying the tea in one hand, his soft drink in the other, Ryan walked down toward the shady spot beneath the Cottonwood beside the water where his mother sat, her hands wrapped around her knees. As he drew close, Ryan saw that she was crying.

Oh, crap.

"Mom?"

Hastily, she turned her head and wiped her eyes. When she looked back, she offered a smile too shaky to be believable. "Hi, honey."

"What's the matter, Mom?"

Her sigh bore the weight of the world. "I was just thinking about my family."

Oh. Yeah, Ryan could see how that could make her cry. Ryan loved his grandfather, but sometimes he didn't like him very much. He didn't treat his mother right, and Ryan didn't understand it. Mom was good to her dad. She tried to please him. Fixed his favorite meals, ironed his sheets. Shoot, a month ago if somebody had tried to tell him that his mom would be dividing her days between accounting, frying chicken, and ironing sheets for the bed, he'd have called them crazy to their face. She acted like a totally different person in Cedar Dell than she did at home. The worst part of the whole thing was, Granddad didn't seem to notice all Mom did for him. It drove Ryan crazy.

"But that's not what I want to talk to you about," his mother added.

"What is it, Mom?"

She sipped her drink and stared out at the water. "I understand you talked to your grandfather about a job at Harmon Lanes."

Oh. Ryan braced himself for the expected argument.

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