Roses Read Free

time.”
    “Why not give them to her yourself when you see her?” he asked, his throat on fire. She seemed diminished without the pearls,
     her flesh old and exposed. Since Ollie’s death twelve years ago, she was rarely seen without them. She wore them everywhere,
     with everything.
    “She may not accept them after our talk, Amos, and then what would I do with them? They mustn’t be left to the discretion
     of the docents. You keep them until she’s ready. They are all she will have from me of the life she was expecting.”
    He bumped around the desk, his heart thudding. “Let me go with you to Lubbock,” he pleaded. “Let me be with you when you tell
     her.”
    “No, dear friend. Your presence there might make things awkward for the two of you afterward if things go wrong. Rachel must
     believe you’re impartial. She’ll need you. Whatever happens, either way, she’ll need you.”
    “I understand,” he said, his voice cracking. She held out her hand, and he understood that she wished them to express their
     farewells now. In the days to come, they might not be afforded this opportunity to say good-bye in private. He sandwiched
     her cool palm between his bony slabs, his eyes filling in spite of his determination to keep this moment on the dignified
     plane she’d lived all her life. “Good-bye, Mary,” he said.
    She took up her cane. “Good-bye, Amos. See after Rachel and Percy for me.”
    “You know I will.”
    She nodded, and he watched her tap her way to the door, back straining for the regal posture so typically Mary. Opening it,
     she did not look back but gave him a small wave over her shoulder as she stepped out and closed the door behind her.

Chapter Two
    A mos stood in the silence, staring numbly into space, letting the tears trickle unchecked down his face. After a moment, he
     drew in a ragged breath, locked his office door, and returned to his desk, where he carefully wrapped the pearls in a clean
     handkerchief. They felt cool and fresh. Mary must have had them cleaned recently. There was no oil, no feel of her, to his
     touch. He would take them home at the end of the day and keep them for Rachel in a hand-carved letter box, the only memento
     of his mother’s he’d chosen to keep. He removed his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and went into an adjoining bathroom to wash
     his face. After toweling it dry, he administered eyedrops prescribed for ocular fatigue.
    Back at his desk, he punched an intercom button. “Susan, take the afternoon off. Hang out the closed sign and hook us up to
     the answering machine.”
    “Are you all right, Amos?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Miss Mary—is she okay?”
    “She’s fine, too.” She didn’t believe him, of course, but he trusted his secretary of twenty years to say nothing of her suspicions
     that all was not fine with her employer and Miss Mary. “Go and enjoy your afternoon.”
    “Well… until tomorrow, then.”
    “Yes, until tomorrow.”
    Tomorrow.
He felt sick at what that day would bring to Rachel, who right now was no doubt surveying cotton fields she thought would
     one day be hers. Tomorrow it would all be over—everything she’d given her adult life to. She was only twenty-nine and soon
     to be rich. She could start over—if she wasn’t too shattered to begin again—but it would be beyond Howbutker, beyond the future
     he’d envisioned for himself when Percy was gone, the last of the three friends who’d constituted the only family he’d ever
     known. He regarded Matt, Percy’s grandson, like a nephew, but when he married, his wife might have something to say about
     her family filling the void left by Ollie and Mary and Percy. Rachel, now, would have been another story. She adored him as
     he did her, and her house would have always been open to him. His old bachelor heart had so looked forward to her coming to
     live in Howbutker, residing in the Toliver mansion, keeping Mary’s spirit alive, marrying and raising kids for him