Chapter 11
Eleven
“ T his is absolutely adorable,” Grace said as she held up the little craft item she had made from an idea she got on social media. She added a few of her own touches, and it had turned out better than she had anticipated.
“I can’t believe how creative you are. I am really good at making something from a pattern, but you’re really good at seeing the pattern and then creating something different and unique, and, I might add, better.”
“You’re my mom, so your opinion might be a little bit biased,” Grace said as she smiled lovingly at her mother.
They hadn’t talked any more about her mother’s new boyfriend or why it had been such a shock to find out about it. How long had her mom been thinking about this? And not telling anyone?
She had sent a quick text to both of her sisters asking if her mom seemed to have any romantic interest, and they both texted back in the negative.
Of course, both of them wondered why, and Grace had been hard-pressed to come up with a legit and truthful answer, one that did not incite any more questions.
“Who could I give this to?” she asked, to herself really, but her mom heard and answered right away .
“Mrs. Donegan’s birthday is tomorrow. I think we all know that because her husband died on her birthday five years ago.
The whole town went out of their way the next year on the one-year anniversary of his death to try to make it a special day for her.
Every year since, I’ve just remembered. I’m sure a lot of other people do too, because I think it’s a hard day. ”
“That would be a really hard birthday for the rest of your life. To have someone you love die on it.” She couldn’t even imagine. And Mrs. Donegan had gone through some difficult things. Not the least had been what had happened with Claire and everyone.
She didn’t want to think about those kinds of sad things today though, so she pushed it aside.
“Do you think she would like this?” she asked, twisting it around and wondering what someone who wasn’t related to her would think.
“I think just the idea that you thought of her and took her something would make her feel good. It’s too bad that Lauren’s mom has been having health problems and has closed the bakery. I know that Mrs. Donegan always had a soft spot for her warm cheese bread.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not having a soft spot for her warm cheese bread.” Grace could feel herself longing for that relic of her past. She could practically smell it now. “Lauren used to talk about taking over someday.”
“I remember you guys sitting out on our front porch, talking about how she was going to make bread and other bakery goods, and you were going to make crafts, and you guys were going to stay here and be happy by the lake forever.”
“Those were girlhood dreams. Then we grew up and realized that they weren’t going to pay any bills.
No one’s going to get rich operating a bakery in a dinky little town like this, and crafts are not exactly something that are super popular anymore.
People want things that are a little bit more sophisticated, and the stuff that I make isn’t like that at all. ”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Your stuff looks just as good as anything you could buy in the store. And craft stores are very popular.”
Grace didn’t argue with her mother. She knew that as much as she loved what she was doing now, there was no way she was going to make enough to support herself.
She did hope she could make a living at it at least long enough to be with her mom and take care of her.
But she supposed that she probably ought to be looking for an actual job.
“You know, if we had the tourist traffic that some of the towns south of us have, you wouldn’t have a problem selling crafts, and Lauren wouldn’t have a problem coming back home and taking over her family bakery.”
“I haven’t talked to Lauren in years. I have no idea if she’d still even want to do that.
” It was true, she hadn’t talked to Lauren for a really long time.
Maybe that was the way it always went where people graduated and went to college and barely saw each other anymore.
Or maybe it was because of the tragedy that they all went through.
It seemed to bind them closer before it blew them all apart.
They didn’t say anything else before Gita’s phone rang, and she picked it up from where it sat beside her recliner.
Grace, who normally worked in the craft room upstairs when she used to help her mom, had brought things to the table so she could sit in the same room as her mom, and her mom didn’t have to climb the stairs.
They were working on stairs in physical therapy, and her mom was progressing rapidly.
She wasn’t quite where she was before her surgery, but she was probably at seventy-five percent, at least by the physical therapist’s estimation.
“Hello?”
Her mom sat and listened for a little bit, and then a big smile appeared on her face. “I’d love to. That would be wonderful. No, I know that Grace would be on board with that too. Would you like us to make dessert?”
There were a few more minutes of typical conversation, and then Gita hung up.
“I hope it’s okay if Donnie and Trevor come over for dinner tonight?
I told him we’d make dessert.” She gave an apologetic smile.
“That basically means you’ll be making dessert.
Although, I’m allowed to stand up for thirty minutes at a time, and I’m pretty sure I can have a dessert whipped up in that amount of time. ”
“I can make something.” Grace tried to keep her voice even.
She hadn’t gotten a chance to say anything to Trevor.
Now she wished she would have called last night after she went to her room.
The thing was, her mom had always had really great hearing.
No matter how low she kept her voice, it seemed like her mom could always hear when she was on the phone when she wasn’t supposed to be.
Of course, now that she was an adult, she could talk on the phone whenever she wanted to. She just didn’t want to bring any attention to herself or have her mom know that she was talking to Trevor, trying to figure out what was going on with her mom and Don.
“That would be wonderful. Will you be able to deliver your craft and still get that done?”
Grace looked at the clock. It was still well before noon. “Sure. I’ll have plenty of time. Even if I have to go to the store and grab some ingredients.”
“I have really been having a hankering for chocolate cake. I wonder how Donnie feels about cake?” Before she could answer, her mom picked up her phone and started texting.
It wasn’t even a minute later before she looked up with a big smile. “Donnie loves chocolate cake.”
“I can make a Texas sheet cake then,” she said.
“If you do that, you have to go get cocoa. I recall using the last of it the last time I made brownies.” Her mother sighed. “That was my little treat before I went to the hospital to have my hip done.”
“That’s a pretty good treat,” Grace said, laughing.
She loved that her mom did little things like that.
Even for herself. That she was always looking for things that made her smile, and if she couldn’t find them, she created them.
Getting her hip replaced probably made her very nervous, but instead of focusing on how upset and anxious she was, she made herself brownies and considered that a happy thing.
“I should have time to run this to Mrs. Donegan, and then I’ll stop back in and check on you before I run to the store and grab cocoa.
Is there anything else we need?” She hated to make such a long trip for just one item, but if they were going to have chocolate cake tonight, she didn’t have a choice.
“I’ll try to think of anything before you get back. I promise I won’t get out of my chair,” her mom added, since she knew that it was Grace’s job to be watching her .
“Thanks for doing that for me. It definitely eases my mind when I’m not here.”
“I know. It’s not my job to make your life harder. I’m trying to make it easier, and happy too.”
Grace blinked as she walked out of the room, taking the craft with her.
It was her job to make it easier, and happy too?
There seemed to be something in her mom’s words that just didn’t quite add up.
Not in a bad way, just…like her mom had a subliminal message.
Which was ridiculous. Her mom had no guile at all, and she certainly wasn’t trying to do subliminal messaging.
Grace changed out of her ratty old T-shirt and put a happy spring top on, pairing it with a pair of capris and flip-flops. She looked suitably presentable to visit Mrs. Donegan and also go to the grocery store. But she didn’t look so dressy that she would make anyone feel uncomfortable.
It was a beautiful day to walk, and Mrs. Donegan lived on a small farm, in a huge old farmhouse just a quarter mile off Main Street in Raspberry Ridge. Since it was so nice, and since her mom was doing so well, Grace figured that she could walk.
Plus, she wanted a little bit of time to process, since Mrs. Donegan was Claire’s grandmother, and every time Grace thought about Claire, she felt guilty, although she wasn’t sure why.
It wasn’t like she and Trevor were in any kind of relationship now.
It was just the idea that she had been accused of something that she didn’t feel like she deserved to have the guilt pinned on her for.
If she had done something, she could admit it, apologize, get past it.
But to be accused of something she didn’t do, and to feel like people didn’t believe her when she proclaimed her innocence, made her just want to accept the fact that everyone was going to believe that she had done it, no matter what she said.
That didn’t sit very well with her either.
She passed the farm where Becky and Rodney had recently settled.