Speak No Evil Read Free Page B

proclaimed and began to rock gently as she sipped her peach tea.
    Silence punctuated their conversation.
    Crickets chirped mournfully and Caroline sighed, giving in to a moment of self-pity for the relationship she no longer had any chance to repair. Flo was gone forever.
    Like Sam.
    Augie suddenly appeared behind the screen door, pressing her face into the mesh.
    Caroline was careful not to betray her disappointment. “All packed?”
    “All done.”
    Sadie raised her glass. “Good. Come on out and grab yourself a cold glass of tea, eah.”
    “I’m fine,” Augusta replied. She slid her tongue out, smashing it against the dingy screen and rolling her eyes. Savannah laughed at the faces she made.
    Josh reached back and tapped the screen door where Augusta’s tongue was propped. “Get out here, Augie!”
    “Blech! Disgusting!”
    “You realize how many mosquito eggs have been laid in that screen?” he countered. “That’s what’s disgusting!”
    Augie pushed the door open, swiping at her tongue. “Point made. Where’s the tea?” Spotting the remaining glass, she reached for it and took a hearty swig, then exhaled a self-satisfied sigh.
    “Now take a seat,” Sadie demanded.
    Without further protest, Augie did as she was told. She sat on the floor next to Josh’s rocking chair, drawing up her knees. “Sorry to disappear on you guys earlier. I’m not so good with the chitchat, you know.”
    Savannah snorted. “That’s an understatement!”
    Augusta slid their youngest sister a dark look. “We can’t all be quite so agreeable, now can we?” There was an edge to the compliment only the deaf would have missed.
    Savannah averted her gaze, staring out at the marsh, and Caroline was conscious of Savannah’s darkening mood. It was evident in the slump of her shoulders, and she wondered why Augusta couldn’t see it and give their sister a break.
    Just once, she wished they could come together and be a normal family.
    “So now that we’re all together,” Sadie ventured, steering the conversation, “maybe you girls will humor me with a teensy favor?”
    There wasn’t much any of them would deny Sadie, but with a preface like that, Caroline had a feeling her favor wasn’t all that teensy.
    Only the sound of wooden chairs rocking on the uneven deck breached the answering silence.
    “Gracious!” Sadie exclaimed. “It’s not like I am gonna ask you for a liver!”
    Caroline laughed nervously.
    “It’s just a tiny exercise,” Sadie cajoled. “I want y’all to come up with one happy story about your mama—just one. Let’s take a minute to remember something nice about Flo!”
    “The liver would be easier,” Augie declared. She raised her hand with a bit of a smirk. “Want mine?”
    Caroline, Savannah and Josh all chuckled. Sadie did not. “Augusta Marie, you are still a hopeless, pain-in-the-behind little girl, eah me!”
    Augie persisted. “I guess that means you won’t be wantin’ my liver?”
    Sadie glared at her with an expression of righteous indignation. It was a look Caroline knew only too well. It was the you’re-in-trouble-now glower she gave them all without discrimination.
    “I’ll start, Mama,” Josh offered, giving Augie a chastising glance as he leaned forward, joining his hands as though to concentrate.
    Augie snickered. “Think real hard.”
    Caroline lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle a smile.
    Peering down defiantly at Augie, Josh lifted a brow. “When I was seven,” he began, nodding in the direction of the pier, “I was out there skipping stones at high tide and Flo came out with two fishing poles, a bucket and a bag of stinkin’ shrimp. She handed me a pole and said, ‘No man under my roof is gonna grow up not knowin’ how to catch trout!’ ”
    Sadie’s black eyes glinted. “That was nice. I can eah her now.”
    Caroline could picture her mother clearly, her tall, willowy figure marching out onto the pier, fishing poles and bucket in hand, bossy as ever,