Summer of Joy Read Online Free PDF Page B

that. He still thought he should have been able to find some way to reach Adrienne’s heart before she ran away from him and her life in Hollyhill, but he’d finally forgiven himself for his failure as a husband and turned loose of his resentment of her failure as his wife.
    Tabitha coming home had made him face that wounded place inside him. David looked across the table at Tabitha who was hooking a strand of her long hair back behind her ear and laughing at something Matt McDermott was saying. She was so pretty, just like Adrienne, and yet in another way she didn’t look a bit like her mother. While the nose and mouth and eyes might be the same shape and color, they weren’t the same. Smiles sat easily on Tabitha’s face, especially now when she looked at her baby.
    But Tabitha didn’t save all her smiles and love for Stephen Lee. She wanted people to like her. She cared whether the people around her were happy. Something she definitely hadn’t learned from the Adrienne David remembered.
    David’s eyes touched on the tiny rose on Tabitha’s cheek. She’d been part of the love movement out in California before she’d ridden the bus across country back to Hollyhill. But what real difference did a tiny tattoo and long hair make? It was what was inside that was important, and his beautiful daughter who had disappeared in the middle of the night with her mother when she was thirteen hadn’t forgotten how to laugh and love. David couldn’t remember ever seeing happiness sit so easily on Adrienne’s face. Maybe after she’d left Hollyhill she found reasons to laugh and smile. He hoped so.
    He had plenty of reasons for smiling himself. He leaned a little in his chair until his shoulder brushed against Leigh’s, and he could smell the fresh scent of her blonde hair curled down around her shoulders. Across the table Aunt Love was holding his healthy grandson. Wes, his best friend in the world, had entered into the family of God so he could be his best friend in eternity too. At the kids’ table, Jocie was feeding Murray mashed potatoes while little Matt and Mollie clamored for her attention. David was beginning to know he had toes again, and Dorothy was passing him a plate of hot rolls fresh from the oven. Life was good.
    He didn’t even have to worry about the Christmas play at church. Miss Sally had told him that morning she had everything under control.

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    T abitha sat on the back pew and fed Stephen Lee while that bratty little Martin kid chased a couple of little girls up the aisle. Miss Sally ought to make him be the donkey in the play since he was so good at acting like one. But no, Miss Sally just grabbed and hugged him before she told him he’d have to sit on the front pew beside her while they decided who was going to do what.
    Tabitha hadn’t wanted to come to the play practice. She’d wanted to stay at the McDermott house and fold and refold the baby clothes Mrs. McDermott had given her. Stuff Murray had outgrown. There had been tiny denim overalls and corduroy pants and red and blue shirts with snaps on the shoulders. She must have given her a dozen pairs of socks and a pair of white tennis shoes with a red stripe.
    As if Stephen Lee needed shoes yet. But they were so cute. Tabitha had taken Stephen Lee’s footed sleeper off on the spot and put the pants and a shirt on him so he could wear the shoes. Mrs. McDermott got her camera out and took some pictures. She promised to give Tabitha copies as soon as she sent them off to be developed.
    Jocie had taken pictures of Stephen Lee with the Banner camera, but she always had black-and-white film. Tabitha wanted the pictures in color. She was wishing for her own camera for Christmas so she could have it at hand to capture Stephen Lee smiling or yawning or doing whatever cute thing he was doing. But cameras cost money, and film and flashbulbs cost money, and having the pictures developed cost money, and money was something she didn’t have.
    Her father