Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

grace. Instead I had cookies and coffee.
    And waiting
outside the women’s meeting did nothing when my mother was already inside.
    Laughing.
    Grinning.
    Preaching the good
news of her sobriety to anyone who would listen…and those who hadn’t asked to
hear.
    “There she is!”
Mom grinned and patted the wooden folding chair at her side. “Honor, baby, I
saved you a seat.”
    The vivacious and
grinning woman was thirty pounds heavier, ten decibels louder, and three
hundred and ninety days soberer than the mom I remembered just a few years ago.
Her skin had cleared, though the dark was still a bit splotchy over her arms
and legs. She chose vibrant outfits to cover up instead. Her hair grew back,
styled with more enthusiasm than gel. She wore bright red lipstick—so she could
smile and our Lord could see it all the way from Heaven, she said.
    The chairs on
either side of her remained unclaimed. It didn’t surprise me. The dozen or so
other women clustered tightly on the opposite end of the circle, politely nodding
as Mom enthralled them with a story from rehab. The radio played a quiet song,
and Mom yelled over it, waving with an animated gesture to ninety-year-old Mrs.
Ruthie.
    “There she is.”
Mom pointed at me.
    Ruthie grunted. “ Eh ?”
    “There! That’s
Honor. That’s my baby.” She frowned and shouted louder, her voice echoing
through the small room. “My daughter ! All grown up.”
    If Ruthie could
see past her cataracts, she was certainly blinded by the brim of her burgundy
hat—complete with a lace nest and beads. She nodded just the same.
    “Lovely girl.”
Ruthie said. “Just lovely.”
    Mom patted her
hand over her heart. “She looks just like her father, God rest his soul.”
    That comment
gained the attention of the women in the circle. I should have remembered most
of them, though my family had stopped attending most of the public events when
I hit high school, when Mom’s addiction got worse.
    They appraised me,
murmuring about my curly hair or the polite shade of my lipstick. At least I
wore the professional, responsible, knee-length skirt, though it meant nothing.
I could just as easily pull up the pleads and shed whatever virtue I had left.
    They murmured
something about my father. I knew I looked like him. So did Mom. She mentioned
it every day, every time she looked at me. She saw Dad in the mocha shade of my
skin, the dramatic arch of my eyebrows, and our shared, silly smile.
    I was better than
a picture to her, she said, but I doubted she really remembered Dad
towards the end. Most of that time was still a blacked out blur to her. Another
life .
    She didn’t even
remember the day Dad died.
    I did.
    Mom gave me a kiss
on the cheek. I shrugged her away as I nearly tipped the cookies and coffee.
    “I’ll be right
back,” I said. “Just dropping this off.”
    “You brought
cookies!” Susan, one of the youth group troop moms clapped her hands. “Your mom
was right. What a blessing you are, coming home and helping her and us like
this!”
    Now I wished I had
baked a cake. I offered her a cookie and passed the tray around as she murmured
her praise. The leader of the woman’s group, Judy Galbraith, scrunched her nose
and gave me a sheperding smile. She loved cookies almost as much as she enjoyed
moderating the parish’s drama, and, as head of four separate organizations, she
earned plenty of both.
    “Oh, what a
sweetheart.” Judy seemed relieved to have another Thomas to address. “Look at you.
Getting involved in your community. Just like your…mother.”
    I recognized the
tone. I would have thought a redeemed member of the parish would be welcomed
home. Mom wanted so much to join the groups and sing the praises and help the
community that she sometimes forgot just why she’d left in the first place. St.
Cecilia’s didn’t. The collective memory was a little too long.
    They all meant to
do the right thing, but their philosophies sometimes did more harm than good.
To them,