The Color Of Grace Read Online Free PDF

from the long-forgotten
possessions stacked on the top shelf in the hallway closet.
    Still avoiding the task of cleaning out my room, I’d volunteered
to pack the bathroom. I’d just stepped out into the hall for a break when I’d
found her holding the jacket to her chest and rubbing her fingers over the
woolly material. It was black and red plaid, ugly as all get out, but she’d
caressed it as if it were fine silk.
    When she’d caught me watching her with a sketched eyebrow,
she’d smiled. “It was your father’s. Ratty old thing was his favorite coat.”
    Immediately, my confusion had melted away and sympathy had
filled me. Feeling as if I needed to share the moment with her, I’d shuffled a
step forward and reached out a tentative hand to touch the fabric too. It was
as scratchy and coarse as it looked, but I’d smiled anyway.
    Mom had thrust the entire bundle at me, catching me off
guard; I’d almost dropped it before my fumbling fingers had wrapped around the
bulk. “Here,” she’d said. “You take it. If you have a son someday, maybe the
style will be back in fashion and he can wear it.”
    But I’d decided, forget someday. I was going to wear the
coat myself. After a good laundering—actually, after about three times through
the wash—making it smell mountain spring fresh, I’d switched out my regular
coat for it.
    It swallowed me whole. The arms were so long; they covered
my hands down to my knuckles, and the girth was wide enough for two of me to
fit inside.
    But at least it was warm, the warmest coat I’d ever worn. I
found myself wearing it everywhere despite how much I had to look like a poor
orphaned waif. Mom always watched me with half a smile and watery eyes whenever
I stepped out of the house with it on, so I kept wearing the huge thing despite
fashion or reason.
    Bundled in my dad’s coat on that frozen night of my going
away dinner, I shivered. The thick bulky fabric couldn’t even protect me from
the icy wind that swept up. I huddled closer to Bridge, who bumped into Adam,
who already had Schy plastered to his other side, seeking warmth. Together, the
four of us shared our body heat as we raced toward Bridget’s old sedan. We
drove to Adam and Schy’s house with the heat blowing full blast.
    Yet still, the ever-present doom of my approaching future
kept me chilled the rest of the night.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter 4

 
    I would always remember that worried look on my mom’s face,
the way she had bit her bottom lip and eyed me as if she had bad news to
disclose, when she had come into my bedroom one night three months ago, slipped
the door closed, and sat gingerly on my bed.
    Totally freaked me out. I thought she had cancer or
something.
    When she had said Barry had proposed, she had looked
nauseated with worry. But I had been so happy I had screamed and hugged her,
repeating, “I’m going to get a dad. Wow. I’m really getting a dad.”
    Okay, yes, I already had a dad. But he’d been dead for
thirteen years. His name had been Daniel. I was three when it happened, so I
don’t remember him. At all. Mom says I was a major daddy’s girl, and I like to
think that was true as a way to, you know, apologize to him for completely forgetting
his face, and his voice, and his smell, and all that.
    Still, the idea of a living dad had totally excited me. And
I hadn’t been upset about Mom remarrying at all. It had been pretty much a
relief, actually. I’d been wickedly concerned about her since I started high
school when college suddenly loomed ahead. Soon, I’d be moving out and heading
off to some university, and Mom would be left all alone.
    That just wasn’t acceptable.
    So you could say I’d been working on her for years to find
some nice, handsome man and settle down. I had been happy when she’d finally
mentioned Barry’s name at supper one evening.
    Of course, I’d had to meet him first, and he’d had to pass
my inspection, which he’d done with flying