Newton Neighbors (New England Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

lacked in finances they’d made up for in energy. Ricky had done a lot of the renovations himself. Maria hadn’t been able to do too much—she’d been pregnant with Cody—but as soon as he was born, it had been a different story.  
    Most of Newton’s new moms cocooned themselves in a love-bubble of soft pink or blue. They breastfed their newborns, took gentle walks around the lake, and did multiple mommy-toddler mornings. Maria was cut from a different cloth.  
    Cody had dozed happily while she’d painted the nursery sky blue. She’d nursed him in the Lowes plumbing department and changed his diapers at Home Depot. She had been up ladders, down at the DIY stores, and around that house like a woman possessed.  
    Maria had laughed when Mrs. Palmer urged her to slow down. She’d said she would stop when the house was finished. Noreen was a treasure in those early years. The older woman had helped with the newborn Cody, and she’d given Maria lots of old furniture, including all her old baby stuff that had been stored for years in the loft of number nine.  
    Mrs. Palmer had been a bit like a mother figure to Maria over the last decade, but Maria could see her next-door neighbor was aging. She was beginning to slow down. Maria thought maybe their roles were reversing now. Perhaps it was her turn to start helping the older lady.
    Instead, her best friend Cathi had notions of getting her hands on number nine, Crystal Lake. She wanted to renovate the house and then live in it herself. When Maria had told her friend the next-door neighbor had been living in the house for fifty years, Cathi had become even more determined. She’d made a powerful argument that Mrs. Palmer was sure to make a financial killing and end up being a very rich woman. She could head to Florida and kick her heels up in the sun. Newton was too cold in the winter for the elderly.  
    That’s what Cathi said, but Maria knew Mrs. Palmer never headed south in the colder months. She stayed in her home at Crystal Lake. Noreen was a hardy woman and walked her dog once the roads were cleared of snow. She wrapped up warm and got out in the winter weather. She wasn’t one of the snowbirds who left at the first sign of frost.  
    Noreen was a Newton woman through and through. Cathi didn’t seem to appreciate that. Half a century in one house was an amazing achievement, and her roots were deep. Having had the conversations with her neighbor, Maria seriously doubted Cathi would manage to get her hands on the property.  
    “What about the other side of the lake?” she said, but Cathi shook her head.
    “Believe me, I’ve done the research. The houses on your road look over the lake to the west, so you guys get sunsets over the water. It has to be on your road and your side of the street. And you know I can only afford one that needs renovation. Numbers five and three have been renovated in the last few years, so they’d be crazy money if they ever went up for sale, and the other three on the waterfront seem settled. I can’t get any info on them.” Cathi looked very serious as she spoke. “The even numbered houses don’t interest me because they don’t back onto the lake. They’re on the wrong side of the road. No, I think it has to be Noreen Palmer’s house. We just have to find a way to convince her to sell.”
    Maria had already knocked back two glasses of punch, and she was a beginning to feel a little calmer, maybe even good. Looking at Cathi’s intensity, she began to giggle. “You know, you’re taking all of this very seriously. Does it really matter? It’s just a house.”
    Cathi didn’t look amused. “It’s not just a house, Maria. It’s a home. It’s a statement of where you’re at in life. It says how rich and successful you are. It tells the world what your values are—big house, big family, big success. You know all that.”  
    Maria frowned. “ Chica , if you ask me, big houses mean big bills and lots of cleaning. Our