The Legacy of Sterling Manor by Jennifer Franz Griffith

Author:Jennifer Franz Griffith [Griffith, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independently published
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Graham came by two hours before his shift started to spend the whole time with me. We spent nearly all the time in bed. Making love with Graham was magical. Just before he had to leave to go to work, I made him dinner and thought I would share the baby news with him then. I lovingly prepared pork chops and potatoes with green beans. It was his favorite meal. I let him finish eating before I cheerfully announced that I was pregnant. But he did not say anything at first. He did not smile or scoop me up in his arms with sheer elation as I had expected.

He finally spoke. “Thomas is still in diapers and Paul barely out of them. I wasn’t expecting to have another baby.”

I am devastated. I could not hide my disappointed tears. I could not help noticing that he said he was not expecting to have another baby – not that he was not expecting to have another baby - yet. He told me that he was just shocked and that he just needed to think about what that meant. He said that he loved me and the boys more than anything else in the world and he would love this baby too. I was not sure I believed him.

He got up from the kitchen chair and walked toward the door. He grabbed his uniform hat and opened the door to leave. I yelled, “Graham, please don’t leave!”

He stopped, put his hat down on the table. He came over to me and took me in his arms and kissed me in a way that made me feel loved and desired and hopeful. And then he left.

By this point, I was in tears. I could feel Celia’s relief and hope at that moment. I touched my lips, almost able to feel the kiss she described in those pages, but I knew that she was never going to see him again. From reading the newspaper clipping I found I knew he would go on a call on the icy roads and that his police car would flip on the highway into some trees and that he died on impact.

I shut the journal. I couldn’t read anymore. It was too painful to think about how she would write about the news of his death and how she would deal with her world crashing down around her. I stood up, wiped my eyes, and put the journal back in its slot in the bookcase. I moved on to another task, trying to shake off all the feelings.

I went to the jewelry box on top of the dresser thinking that looking at old and beautiful jewelry would make me feel happy. Her collection didn’t disappoint. There were strings of pearls and lapel pins, clip earrings, and gold necklaces. When I laid out all the jewelry on the dresser, I looked at the bottom of the jewelry box. There was a folded piece of paper. I lifted it out and unfolded it carefully to see what it was.

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.