River's End (9781426761140) Read Online Free PDF Page A

worst fear was that Sarah wasn’t disclosing the location of the commune out of the fear that she might have to return to this horrible place. . . keeping it as an option in case things here at the river didn’t work out. Anna prayed that it would work out.
    â€œWell, I’m just so glad you’re here.” Anna smiled at her. “I have missed you so much these past two years. You have absolutely no idea. It was like a piece of me was gone. Can you understand that?”
    Sarah seemed to soften now. “I missed you, too, Grandma.”
    â€œAnd I have to admit that it still hurts to think you never tried to contact me . . . just to say you were alive,” Anna confessed, “but I do understand. I know we sometimes do things that seem justified at the time . . . things we might look back on later, wondering if we could’ve done it differently.” Now Anna told Sarah a bit about how it was for her when Lauren was a small child . . . how she might’ve done it differently.
    â€œBut I was so overwhelmed with caring for Lauren’s father. His physical injuries from the war were serious enough, and he was certainly in pain, but the wounds in his mind were the hardest part. I felt I needed to protect Lauren from his outbursts and mood swings. It seemed too much for a child to witness. For that reason, Lauren was left in the care of her Grandmother Eunice . . . far more than I would have liked. However, at the time, I didn’t see any other solution.”
    â€œI’m sure you did the best you could.”
    Anna shrugged. “After Adam died, I stayed on with Eunice. I know it was partly because I was so worn down by the years of caring for him, almost as if I’d lost a part of myself. I just didn’t know what to do, how to start my life over again. And by then Eunice was such an enormous part of Lauren’s life, and she’d just lost her father, it seemed cruel to take that away from Lauren as well. But, as you know, Eunice spoiled Lauren. She gave into her about everything.” She sighed. “And I suppose I allowed it. Oh, I’d try to stand up to her, but it was like standing up to a tidal wave. I really should’ve left much sooner. ButI didn’t. So, to be fair, you should partially blame me for how Lauren was so immature and ill prepared for adulthood when she became your mother. It was like a child raising a child.”
    Sarah’s brow creased as if she was trying to take this in.
    â€œSometimes I’ve thought that if I’d just had the strength to take Lauren away from there, and if I’d brought her here to the river, back when she was still a child, I think about how everything would’ve turned out so differently.” She sighed. “You see how it’s easy to blame myself and feel guilty over this. But that’s when I try to remember that I did the best I could at the time. What’s done is done and I simply have to trust God with the rest of it.”
    â€œI really don’t see how you could blame yourself for Lauren’s mistakes.”
    â€œYes . . . but maybe it comes with being a mother. You always want the best for your children and your grandchildren.” Now she smiled. “But then I have to remember that if I’d brought Lauren out here as a child, she never would’ve met and married Donald and then you wouldn’t have been born. And that would’ve been very sad for me. In the long run, I do think that things do turn out for the best.”
    â€œI wish I believed that was true.” Sarah pulled the afghan up over her shoulders, shivering as if she were cold.
    â€œMaybe you will in time.”
    â€œI don’t know.” Sarah just shook her head. “Sometimes it all just seems so useless and hopeless.” The glum expression on her face reminded Anna of her own mother so many years ago.