Bittersweet Creek Read Online Free PDF

she’d dug up from the newspapers and things she’d heard from the old-timers. She’d always told me she was going to write a book about it when she got better.
    About that . . .
    I laid the folder on the table and told myself not to worry about whether Julian would show up. Say what you would about Goat Cheese, he was generally the best source of Yessum County gossip.
    As I turned to go, I snagged my jeans on the corner of the folder. Papers spilled then floated to the ground. I collated the typed pages, grateful for Mom’s foresight in putting page numbers even though her work looked more like a draft than the book she’d wanted to write. Next I gathered the newspaper clippings and slick microfiche paper that had scattered. Finally, I saw a lone stack of papers that had slid underneath one of the chairs: Happenstance in Love: A Comparison of Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing by Rosemary Satterfield.
    Since that handwritten assignment had brought Julian and me together, I could see Mom had really been doing her homework. I thought back to how she took me to the big library in Jefferson and taught me how to use the microfiche. It was one of her last good days, and she told me, “Now this is something your father won’t be able to teach you, and the good Lord will take away my cosmic library card if I don’t show you how to do this before you go to college.”
    She couldn’t have known that scanned files on the Internet were working to make microfiche obsolete by the time I got to Vanderbilt. She also couldn’t have known that I would later take Julian to the same library and show him how to pull up microfiche or that we would end up leaning too closely together while I did.
    But I wasn’t going to think about that day. As a librarian, Rosemary Satterfield wouldn’t have approved of love among the microfiche—especially not if her daughter had been falling for the worst possible boy.

Julian
    T he last thing I had to do before showering was check on Beatrice. The palomino ambled tentatively around the little paddock I’d made for her, reaching down to snuff the ground for a bite of grass here and there. The wind changed directions, and she sniffed the air then walked toward me, no doubt because she could smell the apple I held in my outstretched hand.
    I reached out to pet her long face, and she snorted then rooted around for the apple. She flicked her ears forward as she crunched. For her, this was a good day. No miracle had occurred to bring back her vision, and the same milky film covered her eyes, making her look like the horse of a demigod. I should’ve had Dr. Winterbourne put her down because she wasn’t going to get better from being moon blind, but I wasn’t much on killing things. She nuzzled my hand as though she knew what I was thinking, and I reached out to rub her old nose.
    â€œAnd how are you doing today, Beatrice?”
    She nickered, which I took to mean she could really use another apple. Instead I led her to the fresh water I’d put out. She sniffed and snorted then stamped her front feet with a swish of her tail as if to say, “Does this look like an apple to you?”
    I rubbed down her neck, picking a few pieces of hay out of her mane. “I’m thinking tomorrow might be a good day to clean you up a bit.”
    She drank deeply from the water, ignoring the man who’d brought only one apple. Her ears pricked and she turned her head in the direction of my other three horses in the pasture beyond the paddock. She held her head high and neighed in the direction of the other horses. They, of course, ignored her.
    â€œI’m sorry, old gal, but they’re just plain mean to you when I let you in there.” Again, guilt stabbed at me. I should’ve put her down long ago. I knew the pain that went along with the flareups, and the medicine to help her was expensive enough to break us. But I