Ties That Bind Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncombed short hair and faded hand-me-down dress.
    But back then those sorts of comments had been commonplace. When Sam was six, her big sister Callie hung herself. In the wake of the tragedy that changed all of their lives forever, the mother who would have combed Sam’s hair and made sure she fit in with the other girls became a shell, leaving Sam and her sisters to fend for themselves. The result was general chaos—and lots of teasing.
    Sam watched Karen’s broad backside as she walked out the door, and it made her smile. Then frown, as she realized how petty she was being. Karen hadn’t aged well, but in her youth she had always been immaculate and pristine, as was befitting a bishop’s daughter. Of course, two of the Miller girls had gotten pregnant in high school and ended up in adulthood a lot earlier than planned. Sam didn’t remember if Karen was one of the two Miller girls who “married young,” but it gave her a certain satisfaction in knowing that she looked better now—the tables had turned.
    As a child, she’d spent years defending her family with her fists and her words. Grown-ups in the ward tended to “cut her slack,” but the kids became her bitter enemies. Sam preferred the hatred. She could barely tolerate the pity that oozed from the pores of their parents.
    People like Sister Miller, to whom she now waved a grateful good-bye.
    She turned back to find D-Ray finishing the soup—since he had quickly downed the hamburger.
    “I am not eating with you anymore,” she said crossly.
    “You wouldn’t eat it anyway,” he said, flashing his enigmatic grin, teeth white and straight.

 
    SIX
    “Hi, Momma,” Sam said as she walked into the kitchen of her childhood home. Her mother only stared vacantly out the window next to the table, watching something fascinating—something so enthralling that she couldn’t even be bothered to notice her youngest daughter standing next to her.
    When would the hope die? The hope that she would respond, in some way, any way. Probably never, as long as that ragamuffin little girl still existed inside her.
    “So, did you have a good day?” Sam asked. “Mine wasn’t great. Had to go on a death call. Stake President Malone’s son. Really sad case. He was only seventeen.”
    Her mother didn’t move her eyes from the invisible panorama. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes mostly unfocused.
    “Please don’t talk about things like that around your mother, Samantha,” her father said, coming into the kitchen dressed in his “yardies,” clothes he used to work outside, tending to his vegetable garden and fruit trees. He leaned down and kissed her mother on the cheek. There was no response. Not even a flinch.
    “So, did you drop by for dinner? I’m afraid we haven’t made anything. We’re not very hungry tonight.”
    “No, Dad, just checking in. How’s it going? How’s Mom doing?”
    Sam didn’t want to tell him that watching Jeremiah Malone’s mother descend into a dark madness propelled by grief—a pathway the woman had been traveling long before today—had brought to mind her own mother and her less-than-sound mental condition.
    “Well, we went to see Dr. Call yesterday, didn’t we, Ruthie? And he says her blood pressure is okay and her heart sounds good. He encouraged me to get her walking more, but you know what that’s like. She doesn’t much care for exercise, do you, Ruthie?”
    Sam’s father had used this pattern of speech for a long time, asking her mother questions as though any moment she was going to look him squarely in the eye and answer, “Yes, Gordon, I really don’t like exercise.”
    But Ruthie Montgomery never did reply.
    More than one doctor had suggested hospitalization and commitment. Sam’s father refused. Instead, he pretended as though her mother had an extended case of laryngitis, as though she didn’t require around-the-clock care and wear an adult diaper.
    Sam’s father looked gaunt and troubled. He had for as