“This is killing me.”
In a heartbeat, April’s hand fitted over Sadie’s. “I wondered about that. Are you…are you okay with all this?”
“Not really.” She leaned back and tilted her head up to look at the ceiling in the approximate spot where the results might even now be being revealed. “You know me. If I had my way, I’d have my ear pressed up against that door listening.”
“No, I mean are you okay with…with the whole baby thing?”
“Oh.” The baby thing. She cleared her throat, tried to make herself revisit any and all of her feelings on the matter but, finding that impossible, simply lifted her shoulders and said, “Yes.”
“Do you want to expound on that?”
“No.” Okay with it or not, Sadie would not risk spoiling Hannah’s moment by letting her own too-long-unresolved grief intrude.
“You want to talk about something else?”
“Please.”
“All-righty-then, tell me about this new job.”
Sadie shut her eyes, pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and groaned.
“What?”
“What made me even consider running the cemetery?”
“The park and cemetery.” An important distinction to someone like April.
“You mean what’s left of the park. Have you checked it out lately? They’ve let city storage all but take over. Old trees, equipment, piles of mulch, bent-up old street signs, they’re everywhere.”
April reached up into a cupboard and pulled down two oversize ceramic mugs. She set them down decisively andsmiled. “Maybe that’s why you’ve been placed in this position, to stop the takeover and restore the park to the way it looked when we played there as kids.”
“April, we never played there as kids.”
“Didn’t we?” She tipped her head to the right, her forehead creased and her eyes moving as though speed-reading the story of their childhood. “Seems I remember a park with red-and-yellow horses on springs?”
Sadie shook her head. “Slide and swings. All we’ve ever had here.”
“No monkey bars? No wooden teeter-totters?”
“Nope.”
April hooked her finger in the neck of her soft, baggy T-shirt and ducked her head. “You’re sure?”
“There are pictures all around the superintendent’s office of the land as it appeared in every decade. No springy horses. Not a single teeter or totter.”
“But I remember those teeter-totters and how happy I was when you were born, because I thought I’d finally have someone to sit on the other side, and Mama said—” She gasped the faintest little gasp possible then covered her mouth, her eyes wide.
“Mama?” The very word took Sadie’s breath away.
Sadie had so few recollections of their mother. A stolen moment sitting in her lap, a summer day in the yard of a house she had only seen in her mind’s eye. In truth, over time she had begun to doubt the validity of those images. Were they memories or dreams or something in between?
Daddy refused to talk about it. He didn’t want to dwell on the past, he said. No good could come of it.
And April, who had been seven when their mother left, had never defied him in that. She kept whatever she recalled locked tightly away. But with this little slip,perhaps a door had opened, and if Sadie prodded, gently, maybe she could learn something about the woman she had never known and yet always missed.
“And Mama said…?” she prompted her sister.
April pressed her lips together, her chest rising and falling with every shallow breath. Her cheeks flushed with a ruddy glow in marked contrast to the rest of her fair, freckled complexion.
“April?”
April opened her mouth.
The teakettle cried out with a blast of steam.
Both sisters nearly jumped out of their skin.
Then April spun around to lift it from the heat.
She hunched her shoulders protectively, and Sadie knew there would be no talk of Mama and the past today.
When her sister turned around again, a practiced calm masked her features. “No. It couldn’t have been the park here in
In a heartbeat, April’s hand fitted over Sadie’s. “I wondered about that. Are you…are you okay with all this?”
“Not really.” She leaned back and tilted her head up to look at the ceiling in the approximate spot where the results might even now be being revealed. “You know me. If I had my way, I’d have my ear pressed up against that door listening.”
“No, I mean are you okay with…with the whole baby thing?”
“Oh.” The baby thing. She cleared her throat, tried to make herself revisit any and all of her feelings on the matter but, finding that impossible, simply lifted her shoulders and said, “Yes.”
“Do you want to expound on that?”
“No.” Okay with it or not, Sadie would not risk spoiling Hannah’s moment by letting her own too-long-unresolved grief intrude.
“You want to talk about something else?”
“Please.”
“All-righty-then, tell me about this new job.”
Sadie shut her eyes, pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and groaned.
“What?”
“What made me even consider running the cemetery?”
“The park and cemetery.” An important distinction to someone like April.
“You mean what’s left of the park. Have you checked it out lately? They’ve let city storage all but take over. Old trees, equipment, piles of mulch, bent-up old street signs, they’re everywhere.”
April reached up into a cupboard and pulled down two oversize ceramic mugs. She set them down decisively andsmiled. “Maybe that’s why you’ve been placed in this position, to stop the takeover and restore the park to the way it looked when we played there as kids.”
“April, we never played there as kids.”
“Didn’t we?” She tipped her head to the right, her forehead creased and her eyes moving as though speed-reading the story of their childhood. “Seems I remember a park with red-and-yellow horses on springs?”
Sadie shook her head. “Slide and swings. All we’ve ever had here.”
“No monkey bars? No wooden teeter-totters?”
“Nope.”
April hooked her finger in the neck of her soft, baggy T-shirt and ducked her head. “You’re sure?”
“There are pictures all around the superintendent’s office of the land as it appeared in every decade. No springy horses. Not a single teeter or totter.”
“But I remember those teeter-totters and how happy I was when you were born, because I thought I’d finally have someone to sit on the other side, and Mama said—” She gasped the faintest little gasp possible then covered her mouth, her eyes wide.
“Mama?” The very word took Sadie’s breath away.
Sadie had so few recollections of their mother. A stolen moment sitting in her lap, a summer day in the yard of a house she had only seen in her mind’s eye. In truth, over time she had begun to doubt the validity of those images. Were they memories or dreams or something in between?
Daddy refused to talk about it. He didn’t want to dwell on the past, he said. No good could come of it.
And April, who had been seven when their mother left, had never defied him in that. She kept whatever she recalled locked tightly away. But with this little slip,perhaps a door had opened, and if Sadie prodded, gently, maybe she could learn something about the woman she had never known and yet always missed.
“And Mama said…?” she prompted her sister.
April pressed her lips together, her chest rising and falling with every shallow breath. Her cheeks flushed with a ruddy glow in marked contrast to the rest of her fair, freckled complexion.
“April?”
April opened her mouth.
The teakettle cried out with a blast of steam.
Both sisters nearly jumped out of their skin.
Then April spun around to lift it from the heat.
She hunched her shoulders protectively, and Sadie knew there would be no talk of Mama and the past today.
When her sister turned around again, a practiced calm masked her features. “No. It couldn’t have been the park here in
Similar Books
