Chief Cook and Bottle Washer Read Online Free PDF Page B

who
refused to acknowledge he even had a daughter. Somehow none of that
seemed to matter now. She was on her own and no one was going to
step in and help.
    She walked to the back of the truck and
hauled her big jug of water to the side so she could get a drink.
She gulped it, then took a dampened wipe to Sammie Jo's forehead.
The baby sighed, but didn't wake.
    If it weren't for the baby, she could walk
the distance and get help, but she couldn't leave Sammie Jo, and
she doubted she could carry her as far as she needed. Sammie Jo
could walk now, but not in those sad excuse for sandals, Emma
grimaced. Shoes she meant to replace last Saturday but she had to
work. She bit her lower lip. When was being a mother suppose to get
easier?
    She opened the door to her side of the truck,
allowing what little breeze there was to filter through the cab.
Sitting on the sideboard, Emma occasionally glanced from the baby
to the road.
    She'd wait a while, and if no miracles
occurred she would try to start the truck again. She believed in
miracles, hopes, dreams. Even Charlie hadn't ruined that for her.
Hopes and dreams had kept her going.
    Minutes ticked in her head as the heat bore
down on her.
    Finally checking her watch she decided to
give it another try. The engine made a loud noise, but nothing
happened and she didn't want to run the battery down, so she turned
off the ignition, hopped out of the truck and began to pace.
    Second rule, don't panic. Frank would have
told her in that same steady voice of his to calm down and take a
long look at her troubles before she got all riled.
    She couldn't sit here in the middle of
nowhere and do nothing, although it seemed the better part of
valor. Third rule, act.
    Act?
    What did a woman with a fifteen month old
baby do in the middle of the Texas desert with a broken down truck?
Where were the manuals for such disasters?
    Emma had always coped with one problem at a
time, as they arose. She felt proud she could. But life had become
a nightmare since she'd left home, with new problems arising and no
one to depend on to help her resolve them. She was tired of being
alone, tired of struggling to make ends meet. What did she know how
to do, besides cook and clean? If her father hadn't insisted that
she had an obligation to fulfill to her brothers and him, she might
have gone on to college. She had good enough grades. But her father
was from the old school. He believed a woman's place was in the
home. So that's where Emma had dutifully stayed for the past
twenty-four years.
    Kate's dying had changed all that. Oh dear,
she didn't want to think of Kate's dying again. It had left such a
profound silence within her. The dry lump in her throat
swelled.
    Poor Kate, dying at the tender age of twenty
of kidney failure. She had risked her very life to bring Sammie Jo
into the world, knowing she had severe diabetes. Knowing it could
kill her. Yet she had braved it with jubilation. The doctors had
warned her. She wouldn't listen. She was already in love with the
prospect of being a mother. What a beautiful mother Kate had been
for those precious eleven months. Kate had fought such a brave
struggle to regain her strength after Sammie Jo was born. But she'd
had been too weak, and her illness had caught up to her. And Emma
had lost her lifelong friend, closest female cousin, and the
exuberance of her own youth. A tear rolled down Emma's cheek. A
tear for Kate, and a tear for Sammie Jo. Emma gulped the sigh back
and swiped her cheek with the tail of her T-shirt.
    She wouldn't cry. Hal T. Smith wouldn't cry.
She was his daughter, and she wouldn't cry either.
    She had an immediate problem to take care of.
She couldn't indulge in memories right now. Tears were wasted
energy, her father had told her years ago. Besides, it did no good.
Kate was gone, Joel had left her and the baby, and Emma now had a
baby to tend to.
    It was half an hour later that Emma spotted
something in the distance. At first she wasn't sure, but as it