Double Wedding Ring Read Free Page A

freshening. The building took up almost half a block with its big plate-glass windows, framed by faded and tattered green-and-white awnings. Right now the windows were bare, but Susan was almost certain that once upon a time, in the spring, those windows had been decked out with hanging baskets of lacy Boston ferns and blood-red geraniums. The wooden bins built out onto the sidewalk in front of the windows now were filled with dusty, ungainly bags of weed and feed. But Susan could see as clearly as the freckles on Malorie’s nose a time when those bins had held tulip and gladiola and iris bulbs, each bin labeled with a colored picture of the bulbs in full, glorious bloom.
    â€œLet’s go there,” she said.
    â€œWhat, Mother?”
    Susan pointed. “There. Go there.”
    Malorie smiled and patted her hand in a way that made Susan want to jerk away. She knew what that pat meant. Her daughter thought she was addlebrained.
    Well, could be she was.
    â€œWould you like to shop around, Mother? We’ll do that soon. Just as soon as you’re ready to get out. But right now, Grandmother’s waiting. Aren’t you excited about seeing Grandmother?”
    â€œNo.”
    Malorie looked at her and smiled, but the smile was strained. That was one good thing about being injured. Susan could say whatever the heck was on her mind and get away with it. The thought made her smile; her smile wasn’t strained at all.
    â€œWhat about Cody, then? Cody can’t wait to see you. He’s missed you something fierce.”
    Susan remembered the sturdy-legged little boy. Malorie had brought him to the hospital twice. With his little round chest and his toddler’s swagger, he looked ready to pick a fight with the world. But his smile was as sunny and uncomplicated as Malorie’s. He troubled her, too, although in a different way than Susan’s grandmother troubled her.
    â€œI’m not much of a mother anymore,” she said.
    â€œNow, Mother. That’s no way to talk.”
    â€œYou may have to be the mother for a while,” she said. “For me and Cody.”
    Malorie was silent and Susan wondered if her words had been too slurred. The trip had worn her out, and when she got tired, her speech got worse.
    â€œWell, I know Cody and Grandmother are both excited about seeing you,” Malorie said at last. “And we’re almost there. Just two more blocks.”
    Susan remembered blocks from the rehab hospital, painted all colors with the letters of the alphabet on them. She wasn’t sure what that had to do with finishing the drive to Grandmother’s house, but she was growing too tired to ask. All she knew was what she had admitted to Malorie, that she wasn’t looking forward to seeing the woman Malorie called Grandmother.
    Grandmother was Susan’s mother. She knew that much because her therapist had explained it to her after Grandmother’s first visit. Rather, the first visit Susan could remember. Grandmother’s name was Betsy Foster, and Susan still remembered the first words she’d heard her speak at the rehab hospital.
    â€œOh, Susan, what have you done to yourself now? This would break your father’s heart if he were still alive to see you like this.”
    Susan hadn’t known how she looked at that point. After hearing Grandmother’s reaction, it had been a long time before she’d been willing to glance at herself in the mirror. Once she finally had the courage to look, she realized she had nothing to compare with her present image. The thin, pasty-white woman with the shaved head and the limp left arm and leg looked no worse to her than anybody else she saw at the rehab hospital every day. And the woman who had been Susan Foster Hovis before the accident no longer existed in her mind. Still, she felt a little queasy whenever Grandmother showed up, because she sensed the disapproval.
    And now, she and Malorie were coming to live