Early Spring 01 Broken Flower Read Online Free PDF

immediately. We might have to go see her, but I still don't want anyone else to know about it just yet, Jordan. You have a few days left to the school year. Be sure you don't tell any of your friends. Promise?'
"I promise, Mama," I said, even though she didn't need me to promise. Since she had emphasized how important it was for me to keep it a secret. I was fearful of anyone knowing about it, too. But I couldn't help but wonder if any of my school girlfriends had already had the same thing happen to them and if they had promised their mothers they would keep it a secret, too. All of us were walking around with our hearts locked.
"You'll take some to school with you in your purse, but don't let anyone see them, and you'll ask to go to the bathroom and change it. Okay?"
I nodded and she took deep breaths as if she couldn't get her breath. For a moment. it frightened me, but she stopped and quickly smiled. She kissed me.
"Let's just go down, have our breakfast, and pretend none of this happened_ - she said.
Pretend it didn't happen? Could I do that? What if I got stomach cramps in the middle of breakfast and groaned too loud or the tampon fell out? All sorts of horrors occurred to me.
"You'll be all right," Mama said once more.
We both heard Daddy walking in the hallway. Sometimes, he wore a pair of very expensive western boots and they clipped and clopped louder than shoes.
"Your father's up and dressed. I'd better get dressed myself," Mama said, and hurried out to do so. She took the folded wet towels with her.
After what had happened to me and what we had done. I was actually afraid to go down to breakfast without her. I was terrified that
Grandmother Emma would take one look at me, point her finger, and say, "You had a menstruation! Get out of my house!"
Of course, she didn't. She barely gave me a passing glance at the table. She was too involved with Daddy and information she had about his
supermarket. One of the employees had broken a bottle of mayonnaise and apparently not done anything about it quickly enough. A customer, an elderly lady, had slipped and fallen and broken her hip. Grandmother Emma 's attorney, Mr. Ganz, had called to tell her he had received the summons for a lawsuit the woman was starting against March's Market.
"You can't imagine how embarrassed I was telling Chester Ganz I knew nothing about it. I could hear how dumbfounded he was in his silence. He knows how I run my business affairs."
Although Grandfather March had given the supermarket to Daddy, it was still part of a
corporation that Grandmother Emma controlled. I didn't understand what all that meant, except I saw it meant Grandmother Emma could still tell Daddy what to do.
"Why didn't you tell me about all this. Christopher?" she asked him. She leaned over the table toward him, clutching the papers in her hand.
Daddy continued to butter his toasted bagel with such concentration, it looked like he would not answer. Ian looked more interested than Daddy did and tried to read what was written on the papers Grandmother held. She snapped them out of his view with a flick of her wrist.
"Well?" she demanded.
Daddy paused and looked like he was trying to remember the reason himself. Grandmother Emma held herself so stiffly, she looked like she had been turned into a statue in anticipation of Daddy's reply.
He shrugged. "To tell you the truth, Mother. I forgot all about it," Daddy said.
"You forgot?" She looked at the rest of us to see if we were just as amazed. Mama looked down. Ian was full of curiosity and I was afraid to look back at Grandmother too long. Sometimes, she gave me the feeling she could read faces the way other people read books.
She slapped the papers on the table. "You forgot we were being sued for negligence? You're not ashamed to sit there and say such a thing?"
Daddy bit into his bagel and then shrugged again. "I forgot," he said as casually as he had a moment ago.
Grandmother Emma turned to my mother and glared at her as if Daddy's