Designated Daughters Read Online Free PDF

makeshift buffet of cold cuts and salads.
    “I believe I could eat a ham biscuit if anybody’s brought some,” Aunt Sister said, and Daddy allowed as how a deviled egg might taste right good.
    The minister paused at the bottom of the worn oak steps and assured them that the funeral service would include all the hymns and readings that Aunt Rachel had requested when she gave him instructions after her first stroke back last winter.
    “Although I’ll be glad to stay with y’all tonight if you want me to,” he said.
    “That’s okay,” Sally said. “We’ll be fine.”
    After sitting so long on hard straight chairs, though, they were glad for the overstuffed chairs and couches and Aunt Sister gave a sigh of pure pleasure as she settled into a soft leather sofa.
    While grandchildren and cousins gave them goodbye hugs, I fixed them both plates and then went back for one of my own, stopping to say a word here and there to the church women, who gave me sympathetic smiles.
    “Poor Sister,” said one of the older women. “First Rufus and now Rachel.”
    “At least she’s back home now and got all y’all,” said another.
    Uncle Rufus retired some twenty years ago. The children were grown and off on their own, so he and Aunt Sister had sold their house, bought an RV, and turned into gypsies. With relatives scattered from California to Florida, there was always a friendly driveway where they could park for a few days and even a few weeks when they came through Colleton County. The high price of gasoline and his tricky heart had brought them home for good two years ago. They traded their last Winnebago in on a used doublewide, and Daddy let them put it on a piece of land he owned a few miles west of the farm, over towards Fuquay. While Uncle Rufus was out picking butter beans in their garden last summer, his heart stopped beating. A neighbor saw him fall, but he was gone before the rescue truck could get there.
    My two aunts had talked about moving in together now that both were widowed, but before they could decide which home to give up, Aunt Rachel’s stroke had made that moot.
    “At least Rufus didn’t linger like Rachel,” said another of their friends. “It’s awful hard on the family if it takes so long.”
    Someone vaguely familiar was talking to Minnie, someone I seemed to connect with politics since Minnie acts as my campaign manager and has always been active in the party. She waved me over.
    “Deborah, I don’t believe you’ve met James Collins?”
    “Please. Call me Jim. Both of you.” He was short and solidly built, with a bald head and the largest nose I’d ever seen on a face that small, but his friendly smile soon made me forget his looks. Especially when Minnie reminded me that he had donated to my campaign last fall.
    “I hope I thanked you properly,” I said. As a judicial candidate, my donor base is so small it doesn’t take long to send each of them a personal note of thanks.
    His smile broadened. “You did,” he said. “In fact, yours was the only handwritten thank-you I got. Refreshing.”
      
    When I got back to Daddy and Aunt Sister, the aide was there. A cheerful little butterball, she said Aunt Rachel’s breathing seemed to be shallow, but otherwise she was resting easy, so Sally encouraged her to go get something to eat. They themselves had almost finished and were back to talking about Aunt Rachel’s amazing burst of speech.
    “Such a gift,” said Sally as she accepted another plastic cup of sweet iced tea. “Right before y’all got here, she was talking to Dad like he was still alive and they’d just got married. It was so sweet. I just wish she could have stayed at that part of her life instead of going back to when the twins died.”
    “Funny,” said Jay-Jay. “I’ve been hearing that story all my life about somebody who bought a bathing suit that got transparent when it got wet, but Mama never said who it was, so I didn’t know that it was Hazel Upchurch or