Lavender Morning Read Free

old maid,” Alex said. “I will always see you as twenty-three and the most beautiful woman in—”
    “Stop that or I’ll tell Lissie on you.”
    “She loves you as much as I do,” Alex said quickly. “So give me your address and I’ll send you all the
    particulars.”
    “Thank you,” Edi said. “Thank you very much.”
    “No,” Alex said, “the thanks are always to you. If it weren’t for you…”
    “I know. Give kisses to everyone for me,” she said, then hung up. It was a full moment before her smile
    nearly cracked her face. She was a great believer in doors opening and closing. The door with Dr. Brenner had
    closed and a new one had opened.
    Now, so many years later, Jocelyn Minton was the love of Miss Edi’s life. The child she didn’t have. The
    heart of the home she’d missed out on.
    Whenever Jocelyn could escape her duties at that little college that worked her half to death but paid her
    little, she jumped in her car and drove home. After the obligatory visit to her father and stepmother, she’d head
    straight to Edi’s house. The two of them would embrace, thoroughly glad to see each other. Jocelyn was the only
    person who wasn’t intimidated by Edi’s stern appearance. She’d hug Edi just as she’d done when she was a
    child. “My lifesaver,” she called Edi. “Without you I don’t know how I would have survived my childhood.”
    Edi knew it was an exaggeration; after all, people didn’t die from a lack of books. They didn’t actually die
    from being stuck in a house with a father, stepmother, and two stepsisters who thought truck rallies were high
    society. But there were different ways to die.
    The truth was that their meeting had been the best thing that ever happened to both of them. Edi had only
    lived in the lovely house Alex had bought for four months when she first saw the child with her family. The house
    they lived in had belonged to Jocelyn’s grandparents, and after her mother’s death it had been willed to the
    granddaughter. It hadn’t taken much work to find out that what money had been left had been quickly spent.
    Miss Edi saw the parents in their leather clothes, their two overly tall twin daughters wearing as little as was
    legally allowable, then Jocelyn straggling behind them. She usually had a book in her hand and her dishwater
    blonde hair covering her face, but the first time Edi got a good look at her, she saw intelligence in the girl’s deep
    blue eyes. She wasn’t the beauty that her mother had been—Miss Edi had seen photos—but there was
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    something about her that drew Edi to the child. Maybe it was her square chin with just the tiniest hint of a cleft in
    it. It reminded her of another square chin that she’d once loved with all her heart. Or maybe it was the way the
    child seemed to know that she was different from the people she lived with.
    At the beginning Miss Edi had twice arranged it so she could speak to the girl. One time was at the library,
    and they spent thirty minutes discussing the Narnia books, and just as they parted, they introduced themselves.
    The second time, Miss Edi decided to take a walk that went past the child’s house. She was outside on her
    bicycle, riding around and around on it. “When I was a child we played hopscotch,” Miss Edi said.
    “What’s that?”
    “If you have some chalk I’ll show you.”
    Miss Edi waited while Jocelyn went inside and got the chalk. Back then, Miss Edi had only needed to use
    one cane for walking. But all those years of standing up while she took care of Dr. Brenner and his team had
    further damaged the muscles in her legs, and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before she was forced to use two
    canes, then a walker, then…She didn’t like to think about those things.
    She felt someone watching her and turned to see Jocelyn’s father. He was wearing what she’d known as