A Soft Place to Fall Read Free

reason Kevin's salary didn't increase the way they had
hoped. Every month it seemed to Annie that the number of unexpected
bills went up and their checking account balance went down and no
matter how hard they tried to keep up with the house's demands,
their income couldn't keep pace with the required outgo.
    "You're lucky it's a buyer's market," Susan
had told her when she first mentioned putting the house up for
sale. "No offense, Annie, but your place is falling down around
your ears. You'll have to replace the windows and put on a new roof
if you expect to even come close to getting top dollar."
    It took three months for the house to sell
and then, as Susan had predicted, the price was well below the
going rate for big old houses on large lots of land.
    "We could have done better," Susan lamented
after the Flemings went to contract. "You should've listened to me
about those windows, Annie. You would've earned back the costs
three times over."
    Annie nodded and tried to look suitably
disappointed but the truth was she was grateful the sale had gone
through before she ran out of options and ended up with nothing at
all. Of course she wouldn't tell Susan that. She wouldn't tell
anybody. Kevin's secrets were safe with her, same as they had been
right from the start.
     
    #
     
    "I think Anne's making a terrible mistake,"
Claudia said as Susan backed her minivan down the driveway.
    Susan, never one to consider her mother's
feelings, rolled her eyes and groaned. "And why do you think that,
Ma? Because she's moving out of that white elephant of a house or
because she didn't want you to stay for lunch?"
    "I don't appreciate your sarcasm," Claudia
said with a slight lift of her chin. She chose to ignore the lunch
remark, even though there was more than a touch of truth to it.
"Anne loves that house. It's where she and Kevin were happiest. Why
on earth would she want to sell it and move into that -- that shack
out by the water?"
    "Don't let Annie hear you call her new home a
shack."
    "Of course not! I would never hurt her."
Claudia was stung that her daughter thought she was capable of such
thoughtless behavior. "I blame it all on Warren Bancroft for taking
advantage of Anne this way." She glanced over at her eldest child.
"You must know she's lowered her standards with this move."
    "Ma, there are times I wish I was
adopted."
    Susan screeched to a halt at the corner stop
sign, barely missing the rear end of another minivan. Claudia
gripped the edges of her purse and forced herself to keep her
remarks on visual acuity and reflexes to herself. Her daughter was
forty-six years old and her eyesight wasn't what it used to be, but
Claudia knew better than to comment on her daughter's driving,
weight, or marriage. Not if she wanted to keep peace in the
family.
    "Annie doesn't need three bathrooms," Susan
went on as if they hadn't come this close to calamity, "and she
definitely doesn't need all those memories. I just wish she'd done
this sooner."
    "There's nothing wrong with memories,"
Claudia said, fixing her daughter with a sharp look. "There will
come a time when a woman is very glad she has them."
    "Annie isn't you, Ma."
    "Watch the road." Claudia refused to
acknowledge the statement. "We don't need an accident."
    "You know what I'm saying."
    "I don't pressure Anne to do anything. She
makes her own decisions." Selling the house was certainly proof of
that. Claudia would never sell the house where she and John had
spent their married life. Selling it would be like losing him all
over again. His spirit still filled their house the way it had when
he was alive. Her children didn't know it, but she talked to him
sometimes. She didn't expect an answer; it was more like a running
conversation that was part monologue, part prayer.
    If the kids knew she did that, they would
think she was crazy. Claudia had seen the looks Susan and Eileen
exchanged when they thought she wasn't looking, one of those
Mother-is-losing-her-marbles-looks that