Precious Gifts Read Free Page A

beautiful, appealing girl and never alone for very long, unlike Timmie, who had been alone by choice now for two years, angry at the mistakes she’d made. Juliette was willing to forgive everyone, including herself, and never seemed to learn. But the only one she ever hurt was herself. The strongest facet of her personality was how kind she was to everyone, her customers, her family, and her men.
    She had just finished serving one of her regular customers when Arnold called. Unlike Timmie, who was unfailingly practical and seemed to take everything in stride, he knew Juliette would be deeply upset and he hated telling her. And predictably, as soon as he told her that her father had died the night before, she burst into sobs. The last customer of the rush at lunch had just left, and she was alone for a few minutes, as she dissolved in tears.
    She had considered herself the closest to her father, because she was willing to do anything to win his love. According to Juliette, he could do no wrong. Even before he got sick, she called him every day to tell him what she was doing and ask how he was. He had been to her sandwich shop/bakery only once, and she acted as though he came all the time. It never dawned on her that her daily phone calls with her father were always placed by her. He never called any of his daughters and stayed out of contact with them for weeks or months until they called him. Every relationship he had was one-sided, with the effort being made by the other person. Neither Timmie nor Joy expended much energy on it, but Juliette did. She even dropped off her best baked goods at his house, so he could taste her new recipes. She was desperate for him to approve of her.
    Paul Parker didn’t disapprove of any of them and was proud of his beautiful daughters. He just didn’t want to play the role of a father and all it entailed. And as they grew older, he preferred to be their friend. They never had that confusion of roles with their mother, who always made it clear that she was their mother, not their friend, although she loved spending time with them. It was Véronique who had had full responsibility for them growing up, but Juliette still insisted that she was close to her father. As Arnold had expected, she took the news of her father’s death hard, almost as though she hadn’t realized for the past year that he was going to die. For the others, it came as no surprise. For Juliette, it did.
    “I thought he’d pull out of it,” she said as she wiped her eyes on her apron, and Arnold sighed. There had been no hope of it for the past many months, while Paul went steadily downhill. And even in the last weeks, when he had been so seldom awake, she had talked to him when she visited him, convinced that he could hear her and would rally again. He never did, and Arnold thought it was a mercy that he had died. The Paul he knew and had been friends with for thirty years wouldn’t have wanted to live in the condition he was in. Paul had been so vital and alive that to see him that way saddened Arnold as his friend. It was better for Paul this way, and in their many conversations over the past year, Arnold knew that Paul was ready to die and had no regrets about his life. But Juliette was clearly not ready to let go of her father, or her illusions about him. She was still crying after twenty minutes when he tried to get off the phone.
    “Timmie said she’d call your mother in a couple of hours, so don’t call her yet,” Arnold warned her.
    “I won’t,” Juliette said obediently, and after she hung up, she went to the door of the shop and turned the “open” sign around to “closed.” She went to make a sign then, and taped it to the door: “Closed due to death in the family.” And then she walked home to her one-bedroom apartment four blocks away. She never paid much attention to decorating it—all she did was sleep there, and the rest of the time she was at work. She arrived at the bakery at four