Dreaming August Read Online Free PDF Page B

spell.”
    “Again?” Forced laughter trembled. Benny cleared her throat. “I’m not tired. Just preoccupied.”
    “You have been preoccupied since the day I met you,” Savannah said. “I believe it must be your natural state.”
    “I used to daydream.” Benny hung her head. “Now it’s more like nightmares all the time.”
    Savannah bundled her into a hug. “You need a break. To my office with you. No sass-back. I’ll bring you tea. We’ll have a cup together.”
    “Herbal,” Benny tossed over her shoulder as Savannah gently shoved her in the direction of her office. Grateful for the whining air conditioner perched in the window, Benny slumped into the comfy office chair rather than on the cot where her boss sometimes slept during lambing season. She breathed deeply, collecting thoughts before any more escaped.
    Savannah pushed through the door, and set a cup of fragrant tea down on the desk. “You okay, Benny?”
    “I keep telling you, I’m fine.”
    “And I keep not believing you.”
    Benny chuckled softly into her mug. Smart woman. But she took the opportunity as it came. “I’m thinking about taking a trip. Getting out of Bitterly for a while.”
    “Oh? When?”
    “After Labor Day, don’t worry.”
    “I wasn’t. Where are you thinking about going?”
    “North Carolina, to see my brother Tim and his family. I just feel like…like I have to get out of here.”
    “I couldn’t agree more.”
    “Really?”
    Savannah tucked the same escaped lock of hair behind Benny’s ear. “Home and family can be as smothering as comforting,” she said. “And I don’t just mean your mother. I mean every little familiar thing here. They remind you, and keep you locked in a place you no longer know how to get out of, with memories that hold you back.”
    Benny sipped her tea. The kinship between them had always been natural, and only now did she wonder why when Savvy was tough as a steel-toed leather boot, and Benny was soft as an over-worn ballet slipper. But they both loved the farm, and growing things and—
    “Why did you come north?” Benny asked.
    “That you’re asking just now tells me you know.”
    “You lost someone you loved.”
    Savannah nodded.
    “Who?”
    “Everyone,” she said. “We are talking about you, Benedetta, and how you need a change of scenery. Have you told your mother?”
    “I haven’t told anyone but you.”
    “Good. Don’t tell anyone else until just before you leave. Bless her heart, but your mother will try to talk you out of it. You need to go. You need to find your happiness again.”
    Head bowed, Benny twirled her wedding ring around and around her finger. Happiness. She had moments of it, certainly—like her week with Dan, and when she imagined holding her baby, rocking him to sleep, even changing diapers. Yet…
    “It makes me feel guilty to think about being happy,” she said. “How can I ever be happy again when Henny’s dead?”
    “Denying yourself happiness doesn’t bring him back to life. It only wastes yours.” Savannah hugged her from behind the chair. “Listen to me, sugar, as one who has been where you are. There are victims, and there are survivors. You are a victim. I am a survivor. Do you see the difference?”
    Benny leaned into her. How many times had she wished she were more like Savannah? Moving north, buying a farm, living all on her own without any help, she lived. Every moment of every day, she lived deep in the life she built for herself, by herself. It made Benny feel weak, and sad, and too many things she had no name for.
    “You live for the future,” she said. “I live in the past.”
    “I like that.” Savannah straightened. “Very nicely put. And exactly right.”
    “Thank you,” Benny said. “I—I’m trying.”
    Savannah patted her back. “Drink your tea. When you’re done, I can use your help with the chickens.”
    Benny sipped her tea growing cold in the air-conditioned office. Savannah was right. She needed out