Marriage Seasons 03 - Falling for You Again by Gary Chapman, Catherine Palmer Page A

basement craft room making beads or printing out orders from my computer or running to the post office with a bunch of boxes to mail. I really do appreciate all the work you and Mrs. Moore have done sorting beads for me. It’s been a huge help.”
    “No problem.” Charlie gave the can opener a final twist, and the lid popped open. Truth to tell, if he never saw another bead in his life, it wouldn’t bother him a bit. He handed Ashley the can. “Watch the edge of that, now. It’s sharp.”
    “Wow, you’re right, Mrs. Moore,” Ashley said, dumping the contents into a saucepan. “These beans aren’t nearly as green and pretty as the ones from your garden.”
    “Nothing beats fresh vegetables, right, Charlie?” Esther flashed her husband a pretty smile. “If someone had troubled himself to plant enough beans this summer, we wouldn’t need to be opening cans. We’d have bags of beans from our own garden sitting in the freezer.”
    Choosing not to remind Esther that it was she who had urged him to limit the number of rows in his garden this year, Charlie set off toward the laundry room. Esther had said she was tired of cleaning and freezing vegetables, he recalled. “Why not just open a can from the grocery store?” she asked him. “It’s much simpler, and the beans are almost as good.”
    As usual, he had done his wife’s bidding. Now he was paying the price. He had conceded her original point. The garden was too big, and it took a lot of time and work.
    Charlie loved his garden, though. Since Esther wasn’t interested in buying a motor home, taking a cruise, or even venturing out of state to see the grandkids, he knew he’d be stuck at home again next summer. He might as well take his garden back to its previous size, no matter what Esther said.
    Hearing Ashley’s voice in the kitchen reminded Charlie of something that nagged at him every time he made a round in his golf cart. Back in the summer, Brad Hanes had begun building an addition onto the couple’s small house. The young man had informed Charlie that it was to be a garage for his new truck. But Ashley had told Esther the room would be a nursery for the baby she was hoping to have one of these days.
    Either way, not long after Brad erected the frame and put on a semblance of a roof, construction ceased. Now the Hanes property—never much to look at in the first place—had become an eyesore. Charlie had done some investigating. He learned that not only had Brad failed to obtain a building permit, but he hadn’t gotten construction permission from the subdivision’s governing board. To top it off, debris lay scattered everywhere—piles of flagstone, heaps of dirt, stacks of shingles, and several moldering cardboard boxes filled with vinyl siding.
    Halting on his way to the laundry room, Charlie looked back toward the kitchen. “Say, how’s that addition coming along, Ashley?” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t believe I’ve seen Brad working on it for a while.”
    A moment of silence was followed by Esther’s voice. “Charles Moore, if you don’t stop griping about Ashley’s new room, I’m going to give you a good chewing out. Leave her and Brad alone. They’ll finish it when they have time—which is a scarce commodity when you’re young.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Charlie muttered under his breath. Surely in four months the Hanes kids could have found a few hours to straighten up the clutter. If there was one thing Charlie couldn’t stand, it was a mess.
    He ambled into the laundry room, opened the dryer, and began folding clothes—a new activity he’d undertaken in recent days. Charlie hadn’t signed on for this job when he married Esther. But life had changed since her accident—in more ways than one. He laid one of his undershirts on the dryer and smoothed it out with his palms. As he began to fold, he could hear the women still jabbering away in the kitchen.
    “I don’t think Brad’s ready,” Ashley was saying.