The Color Of Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

colors. The first time Mom had
invited him over, he had given me a single pink rose.
    I was a goner from that point on. Barry had caught me, hook,
line, and sinker. He was a doctor—a dentist to be exact—and my mom had met him
while working as a scrub nurse in the ER after he’d been in a minor car
accident and hurt his knee. They’d met while she’d been decked out in a mask
and surgical gloves and then, yeah, the rest was history.
    After my enthusiastic response to her marriage announcement,
Mom’s shoulders had sagged, and she had smiled. But in the next moment, her
eyes had welled with tears. “I’ll always love your father, Grace,” she had said.
“And I’ll always love you. No matter what. You come first.”
    I had teared up a little too. Okay, fine, confession: I’d totally
had the crocodile droplets going on full throttle. We’d hugged some more. I
think we talked until midnight that night, opening up to each other about our
feelings, and thoughts, and dreams, bonding like two best friends instead of a
mother and daughter. I had felt so connected to her. We understood one another,
and I knew we’d always have each other no matter what man came into our lives.
    The wedding had been a short, quiet ceremony, set in early
November. It had been a warm, yet breezy day, scattering the most beautiful
colored leaves across the chapel lawn. Mom and I had held each other close,
pressing our cheeks together, and grinned at the photographer as we had our picture
taken outside. When we had motioned Barry over to join the next shot, he had
charged forward, wading through the fall foliage with ease, and had wormed
between the two of us to throw one arm around Mom’s shoulder and the other
around mine.
    And the three of us had become a family.
    I felt better—calmer inside—after Mom married. She’d finally
found her happily ever after. I didn’t have to worry about her, not that I’d
ever admit I did worry. She’d just roll her eyes and retort worrying wasn’t a
daughter’s duty, it was a mother’s.
    Uh huh. Right.
    She was happy, though. Barry made her almost giggly. That
was all I cared about. Well, mostly all I cared about. One little glitch I
hadn’t foreseen in this happily ever after was the rest of my high school
career.
    Barry owned a wonderful house on a three-acre lot on the
edge of Osage, a town not too far from ours, containing a population in the
whopping four digits. His place made our two-bedroom bungalow look like a shack
in Ethiopia.
So, basically, it was a given Mom and I would move in with him. But he lived
twenty-three miles away, see, and Hillsburg High—my home school—became a
forty-some minute trek one way, through ice, snow, rain, and every other
seasonal disaster that made Mom cringe and announce, “No way are you driving
that far every day.”
    No way was she going to let me stay at Hillsburg when I’d be
able to walk to Southeast—which just so happened to be Hillsburg’s all-time
school rival.
    If I’d been a senior, she might’ve let me drive the distance
for the rest of the year. But being a mere junior, I was forced to—you got
it—transfer.
    Oh, the horror.
    Since Mom was so happy, I didn’t complain. This would be
best for her and only a year and a half of sacrifice for me. That was the big
picture I forced myself to see. But inside, I dreaded every moment that drew
closer to the big switch.
    She’d given me a small continuance and told her new husband
we’d have to wait to move in with him until I finished the semester, except…the
semester was now officially over and even the two-week winter break separating
me from becoming a purple and white dragon had come to an end.
    Barry, Mom, and I had barely been living together for two
weeks by the time the Sunday evening before my first day at Southeast rolled
around.
    I’d been queasy all afternoon, making myself sick with worry
and hoping it’d turn into a full flu. That way I’d have a few more days to
prepare