2,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Spiral Publishing, Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Sometimes transitions reveal more than than we imagine.
Marlene expects a bittersweet day, revisiting a house her mother no longer calls home.
Along with the joy of creating a haven for the next generation.
But her mother’s reaction exposes more than the passage of time.
Find out what happens when family secrets and worries can’t hide any more.
Originally appeared in Fiction River: Superstitious, 2019
An excerpt from The Worry Trap:
Revisiting childhood, and so much more…
“Hang on, Mom,” Marlene said, leaving her memories with her footprints and catching up. “That last step is tricky.”
“I guess I know how to go into my own house, Marlene. Even if I don’t live here anymore.”
Marlene smiled, nodding even though her mother was already inside. This was a happy occasion, and she was going to act accordingly.
Even if her mom got fussy along the way.
“How’s everything look in here for your granddaughter’s arrival?”
Her mother stood in the middle of the wide porch, hands on her hips, turning from side to side. The sunlight caught her short, permed hair, glinting off the silver highlights.
Marlene hoped her own chestnut hair would be exactly the same color when she finally stopped getting it touched up.
Someday.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Ähnliche
For everyone caught between two generations.
The Worry Trap
Kari Kilgore
Spiral Publishing, Ltd.
Chapter 1
The old home place had hardly changed in Marlene’s lifetime. Her childhood home could be a vintage Polaroid photo of itself, a tiny bit faded around the edges, maybe a couple of scratches or tears, but unmistakable.
A solid one-story cinderblock foundation painted to match cheerful dandelion-yellow wooden siding above. A broad porch screened in for summer sleeping. A high peaked tin roof that shed heavy snowfalls and sounded divine during rainstorms.
A few of the merry gargoyles and critters her father had delighted in carving into the wood or setting into the foundation peeked out at her, tickled she was finally home for a visit.
Countless others waited throughout the outside and inside, biding their time for greeting and recognition.
The grass in the tiny front yard was a bit shaggier than her parents kept it, the steep gravel driveway up the mountain more rutted with runoff than her father would have ever allowed. The same sheltering oak and maple trees showed off in their summer finery, though, and the chorus of afternoon birds sang and chirped in the woods and shallow frog pond beside the house.
The riotous flower beds Marlene and her sister Mary helped her mother tend still surrounded the yard and ran alongside the driveway. Aside from needing a few dead blossoms pruned away, the roses, daisies, and peonies were in gorgeous form.
Marlene hoped the birds had spared a few of the apples planted further up the lush hillside.
She popped a cherry cough drop into her mouth to counteract the lingering taste of acidic, overcooked coffee from the assisted living facility and grabbed her smartphone off the charger. Then she walked around to help her mother out of the minivan.
Marlene kept an eye on the placement of the older woman’s green metal cane and heavy black lace up shoes on the gravel as she pushed herself out of the seat.
Gabby Everett would have shunned such clodhoppers a few short years ago, preferring modest heels or bright lace-up tennis shoes. Same with the generic navy blue pants and plain red pullover blouse. Far too ordinary, yes, but easy to put on and wash. Gabby had never been afraid of a fancy skirt or a dry cleaner when she’d had the choice.
Those days had passed the same way Marlene’s years driving sports cars had.
Far sooner than expected, way too fast to properly mourn.
Marlene followed her mother up the wide, perfectly level concrete steps her father had taken great pride in pouring himself. Marlene walked close enough to catch her mom if she stumbled, far enough back that they could both pretend that wasn’t a worry.
She traced her fingers along the impressions on the inside of each step, tucked against the foundation. All the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren’s bare feet, preserved in light gray eternity. Older generations were set the day the stairs were complete, new children added on their first visit. The larger to smaller results always reminded Marlene of Russian nesting dolls.
Her own daughter had squalled at having her warm, soft foot pushed down into cold, wet concrete. The twenty-three years that had flown by in a heartbeat hadn’t dulled the furious and betrayed look Jana flung at her formerly trusted mother, barely twenty-four herself.
Time hadn’t dulled the guilt that first gnawed at Marlene that night either, holding her infant daughter on those steps in the eerie bright light of her father’s Coleman lantern.
One questionable parenting decision down. Many thousands to come.
The screen door at the top squeaked the same way as always, a distinctive two-toned note that said welcome home.
“Hang on, Mom,” she said, leaving her memories with her footprints and catching up. “That last step is tricky.”
“I guess I know how to go into my own house, Marlene. Even if I don’t live here anymore.”
Marlene smiled, nodding even though her mother was already inside. This was a happy occasion, and Marlene was going to act accordingly.
Even if her mom got fussy along the way.
“How’s everything look in here for your granddaughter’s arrival?”
Her mother stood in the middle of the wide porch, hands on her hips, turning from side to side. The sunlight caught her short, permed hair, glinting off the silver highlights.
Marlene hoped her own chestnut hair would be exactly the same color when she finally stopped getting it touched up.
Someday.
She’d leaned the cane against the wall, maybe expecting not to need it here. Maybe forgetting she needed it at all.
“Well, it’s a dusty mess,” her mother said. “Cobwebs everywhere. Looks like the floor hasn’t been swept since I left. We’ll have a job getting this place cleaned up for Jana.”
Marlene pushed the wooden porch swing, grinning at the same gronking sound from the chains that she remembered so well. Several of her father’s grinning carvings decorated the back and arms. The flowery linoleum was a bit gritty underfoot, and spiders had indeed been celebrating in every corner. But the screens looked sound and nothing was leaking.
“I think Jana will do just fine getting it cleaned up, Mom. She’s so excited to be living here. I think we could tell her she had to scrub the whole place with a toothbrush and she’d sing while she did it.”
Her mother grunted.
