4 Shelter From The Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

for diversion, he said he would pick her up instead and they would walk together down State Street. Okay, they made a deal.
    So now he found himself by the curb outside the house where he and Mattie had raised a family, and he was wondering if she would ever paint the porch. He had mowed around the trees and azaleas in this front yard so many times he could probably do it in his sleep, and he had to admit he missed it. But did he miss Mattie, who still called herself Dubonnet? Not on your life.
    “Well, hello Tubby,” she said when she answered the bell. She gave him a big smile. A discreet golden favor from an old Comus ball adorned her perennially tanned, attractive, and not-forgotten chest. The rest of her was stylishly draped in a white, fairylike beach dress.
    He grinned in admiration and shook his head, and was glad he was wearing sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes.
    “You’re looking good,” he said honestly.
    “Are we ready to go?” Collette brushed past her mother.
    At fifteen, she was a smaller version of the original, just developing some pretty significant curves. Until the last year she had been real smart in school. Now, like her mother, she was starting to expect to be the center of attention in any crowd larger than three and was generally getting to be a know-it-all. Unlike her mother, she still loved Tubby.
    “Ready and waiting,” he said.
    “Then let’s head out.” Collette took her father’s elbow, turned him around, and hustled him down the walk to the gate that was about to fall off its hinges.
    “I’ll be at the Ormonds,” Mattie called, to let Tubby know she was still in demand. Poinsette Ormond was among the high-class attorneys he was personally glad to be rid of. “Maybe I’ll see y’all at the parade.”
    Tubby was halfway down the block before he let his stomach out. Brief encounters with the ex-wife were always nerve-wracking.
    “Are you in a hurry to get to the parade?” he asked Collette, who was prodding him on ahead.
    “No, I’m just glad to get out of the house,’ she said in exasperation.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to match her stride down the oak-lined sidewalk, sections of which had been broken and lifted by the trees’ massive roots. They were passing lovely homes and tended hedges, all belonging to his former neighbors.
    “You know how Mattie is. She just keeps asking questions. Who am I talking to on the telephone. Why Brenda is dropping out of school. Just bugging me all the time.”
    “You call your mother Mattie?”
    “When she’s like that, I do. She’s absolutely convinced I’m going to start doing drugs and pierce my nose and go grunge.”
    These were exactly Tubby’s fears.
    “Ha. Ha,” he laughed.
    “Really,” she said in agreement. She waved at some boys in ragged blue jeans and baseball caps sitting on the wide steps between the columns of a grand old wooden porch.
    “So you don’t like nose rings?” he asked.
    “They may look fine on somebody eighteen, but not on a girl my age,” she said sensibly.
    His brow furrowed.
    “Will we have to stay long at the Molideaus? What are you supposed to call them? They’re not married, are they?”
    “Her last name is Gayoso. Just call him Mr. Molideau and her Ms. Gayoso. We’ll stay awhile and get something to eat and then go to the parade. We can go back to their house whenever we want and use the bathroom.”
    “Why don’t they get married? Haven’t they been together for years and years?”
    “I have no idea,” Tubby said. “They own the house together. I guess they just have their own jobs and want to keep their lives a little bit separate.”
    “I think that’s so cool.”
    He did not have a chance to find out what part of the arrangement she found cool because they reached the gate of the Molideau yard.
    “Howdy, stranger.” Bonita, in yellow shorts and a Crescent City Classic T-shirt greeted them. “Is this Collette? Honey, you’ve grown!”
    Collette got