Flowers in the Snow Read Free Page B

that illustrated she was up for the challenge. “Is that how you were when you were a kid? Did you talk so people listened like you do today?”
    “There were no people to listen, really. I remember feeling very lonely most days. The girls in Sunday school didn’t think I was well-behaved enough to spend time with them. The girls smoking cigarettes and cursing behind the schoolhouse didn’t think I was bad enough to spend time there. That’s how things always were for me. I wasn’t enough of any one thing to fit in. I wasn’t great at school, but I didn’t fail either. I couldn’t sing well enough to be in the choir. I couldn’t play an instrument with any real talent. I couldn’t bake or sew all that well.”
    “You couldn’t bake?” Frankie asked incredulously, completely unconvinced that the woman who cooked for ten people every Wednesday night and ran the kitchen at her very own restaurant couldn’t bake. She couldn’t imagine a day where Grammy didn’t have some kind of kitchen utensil in her hand or a dusting of flour across her clothes. 
    “I didn’t walk out of the womb making a pie crust, no. I was plain and average in all ways. My brown hair wasn’t quite curly but not straight either, so I always tied it back in braids. My face wasn’t mangled and ugly, but I wasn’t winning any modeling contests. So I spent most of my time alone, just dreaming in my own head.
    “My mother, Thelma . . . she had always wanted a big family. For most folks that’s how it was back then. Being an only child in those days usually meant there was something wrong with either you or your family. It was a sign. But she kept losing babies before they could grow to full term, and it did something awful to her spirit. She never really came back from that. Rather than making her appreciate having me, it seemed to make her resent me. Like I’d done something to her insides while I was in there to make it impossible for her to have more children. That’s the way it felt, like she was looking at me, and I could never be enough for her. Every time a woman at our church got pregnant, she sank a little lower.
    “My daddy . . . he was something else all together. He was my hero when I was a little girl. I can still remember him hoisting me up on his shoulders at the Fourth of July parade. He worked damn hard as a maintenance man, fixing anything and everything in town that needed fixing. It was well-known if no one else could get your refrigerator repaired, Earl Ray Reynolds could bring it back to life.”
    “Your maiden name was Reynolds?” Piper asked as she curled her legs up on the porch swing and leaned against Bobby.
    “Yes, and when this story is through you’ll see why I was happy to rid myself of it as soon as I married Jules’s father. It’s funny how time can change the meaning of something. How it can twist a reputation from admired to disgraced.”
    “Grandad was a disgrace?” Jules asked, showing everyone on the porch just how little Betty had shared with her own daughter.
    “Not nearly as soon as he should have been. For a long time both my parents were well-liked and respected. My mother was an active member of our church, teaching Sunday school and organizing fundraisers for folks who needed them. She was the first to come by with a pot of soup when someone was sick and the last to leave the school during a bake sale. My daddy was quite active too. He was part of a social group of men revered in our town. His status within the group was one of high stature, and he had worked very hard to earn his position there.”
    “Did they play cards or something?” Frankie wanted to know, not appearing completely engaged in the story as she twisted a red ringlet of her mother’s hair around her finger. It was something she’d done since she was an infant, and every time Betty saw it she smiled.
    “They did not play cards, dear,” Betty explained, drawing in a deep breath. “They wore white hoods and