Written on My Heart Read Free Page A

appreciate what she had taken the time to teach me. Doing these things reminded me of her. I came to love creating something warm, beautiful, and lasting, or something that tasted of comfort, or helping The Point women put together wreaths for the annual Christmas season craft fairs.
    As the baby claimed its space inside of me, I thought about whether Bud would ask me to marry him. As long as I had loved him, I had dreamed of being married to him, but after all that had happened, it was enough just to have him with me. I was content with that. But in May, maybe at the urging of his mother, who said nothing with her mouth but everything with her eyes, he had asked me to marry him one night at suppertime.
    â€œWondering,” he’d said, as I was easing a forkful of peas over my big belly.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œWant to get married before the baby comes?”
    Several peas jumped ship and tumbled down the slope of my stomach.
    Bud scraped his chair back and walked around the table to me. He knelt down beside me and folded my left hand between his own hands. “Florine Gilham,” he said, his dark eyes just as dead serious as I’d ever seen them, “you’re a keeper. I can’t think about my life without you. Will you marry me?”
    Could he feel the pulse of the hand cradled between his own? My heartbeat picked up so, the baby turned over. “Of course I will,” I said.
    We kissed for a little while and then he broke it off. “Don’t have a ring,” he said.
    â€œWait,” I said. Bud hoisted me to a standing position and I waddled upstairs to our bedroom.
    I headed to the bureau, to Grand’s wooden jewelry box. Her husband, Franklin, my grandfather, had made it for her and carved her name, Florence, into the top. The hinges creaked as I lifted it up and looked inside. Grand never had much use for frippery, as she called it, but a few choice things were tucked inside. I plucked her diamond ring out of its velvet holder, pushed it over my swollen finger to see if it fit, took it off, and then squeezed it tight in the palm of my hand. Once downstairs, I handed it to Bud and he slipped it back onto my finger. Then Bud went back around the table to finish his supper.
    In less than twenty-four hours, we would be married.
    My husband-to-be turned over in bed and faced the wall, wriggling his back and butt toward me so that we touched. With the effort a whale must make to breach so it can breathe, I shifted my bulk so I was on my back. I draped my right arm over his hip and drifted off tosleep.

2
    O ur wedding day started with a visit from my late father’s girlfriend, Stella Drowns. No one locked their doors on The Point. She barely knocked before she charged in, hollering, “Yoo-hoo!”
    Bud shot straight up in bed. “You fucking hoo?” he said to me. “Is she for real?”
    â€œWe’re in bed, Stella,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Come back later.”
    â€œOh, I’m sorry,” she called from the bottom of the stairs. “I’m just so excited about today. I brought you a coffee cake. Figured you could use the sugar and the energy.”
    â€œCould have used the sleep too,” Bud shouted.
    â€œHope you’re not that cranky all day,” Stella hollered. “Happy wedding day!” She slammed the front door on her way out.
    â€œWhat did Leeman ever see in her?” Bud said. “She’s out of her mind.”
    â€œCoffee cake,” I said. “He liked her, um, cake.”
    Bud rubbed his hands over his face. “You want cake and tea?”
    â€œThat’s a great idea.”
    He climbed over me and stood naked in the early morning light. He scratched his butt and went across the hall to the bathroom. The baby did the twist in my belly. I put my hand on her to calm her down, but she kept it up, as if the prospect of coffee cake for breakfast and a wedding for lunch excited