A Small-Town Reunion Read Online Free PDF Page A

pest, but I had to see for myself that you came through that quake all right.”
    “I told you on the phone,” Addie said as she eased out of her mother’s arms, “everything’s fine.”
    “You said some of your shop glass was broken.” Lena took the pink Bern’s Bakery box Addie handed her and carried it into her compact kitchen. “Did you file an insurance claim?”
    “I found another way to replace the supplies.”
    Addie took her usual spot at the tidy table set for two. Her mother had folded her faded cotton-print napkins into the foiled stained-glass rings Addie had made for a birthday present years ago. Addie ran a fingertip over one of the pretty bevels. “I went to Chandler House today.”
    “Oh?”
    Lena could pack a sky-high load of meaning into that one syllable. Tonight, disapproval underlined her stone-faced delivery.
    Addie searched, as she so often did, for traces of herself in her mother’s features. When she was younger, Addie had imagined she could find her father in the differences. But she’d soon abandoned that game, once she’d figured out she’d probably never see the man. It seemed fitting to give up on him, since he’d never given her or her mother anything. No contact, no assistance. Lena had never told her daughter who he was—not somuch as his first name—and Addie had long ago ceased to care.
    She could see her own saturated blue in her mother’s eyes and a bright hint of gold twining through the older woman’s darker hair. But Lena’s face was thinner, her cheeks less curvy and her jaw less sculptured. It was as though age and hard times and bitterness had worn her features.
    Addie lowered her eyes, guilty over her unkind thoughts. “Two of the stained-glass windows were broken,” she stated. “Do you remember the set on the landing between the main floor and the bedroom floor?”
    “The four seasons. Yes, I remember.” Lena ladled seafood chowder into a large bowl. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
    “She’s hired me to fix them.”
    “I suppose that means you’ll be spending a lot of time at the house.”
    “As little as possible.” Addie pulled her napkin from its glass ring as Lena set the bowl of soup in front of her. “I’ve already had the windows removed and delivered to my shop.”
    Lena took her own seat without comment.
    “She sent a ‘hello’ for you,” Addie said.
    “Who did?”
    “Geneva.”
    “Oh.”
    Addie cut off a sigh and leaned forward, hoping her mother would raise her eyes to meet her gaze. “She asked how you were.”
    Lena idly stirred her thick soup. “That was kind of her.”
    “She’d be more than kind to you if you’d give her the chance.”
    “I don’t want Geneva’s charity.” Lena lifted a basket of rolls and handed it to Addie. “Or her pity, or anything else she’d care to offer.”
    “I was talking about friendship.”
    “We were never friends.” Lena shredded one of the rolls on her plate. “We were friendly. There’s a difference.”
    “I don’t think Geneva ever saw it that way.”
    “She wasn’t your employer.”
    “She is now.”
    It wasn’t often that Addie disagreed with her mother. The silences that stretched through the tense times that followed their arguments weren’t worth the trouble. Jonah Chandler was dead; Geneva Chandler had become the focus of Lena’s bitterness and resentment.
    Addie sought a new topic, but the only thing that came to mind wasn’t a subject she particularly cared to discuss. “Did you know Dev was back?”
    “No.” Lena paused with a spoonful of soup near her mouth. “And even if I had known, it doesn’t matter,” she said with a meaningful glance.
    Addie was tempted to confess that it did matter. He still had an effect on her that she couldn’t control. But she knew her outburst would be followed by a lecture instead of sympathy. Lena had a lecture for every situation concerning the Cove’s most influential family.
    And all those lectures ended with one