To Have and To Hold Read Online Free PDF Page B

should have so much influence over Dave, she shrugged. “Alright. I’l ask
    him.”
    “Good. Aunt Sal y and Aunt Jenny brought babies, and I don’t want to be with babies.”
    “Aunt Sal y and Aunt Jenny?”
    “Pa’s sisters. You like them.”
    That was good. If she liked them, then there shouldn’t be a problem with seeing them. Helping
    Rachel down from the highchair, she decided to go to the parlor where she could hear her
    husband talking. Her steps slowed as Isaac and Rachel fol owed her.
    “Thanks for coming by,” he said.
    “She doesn’t remember anything at al ?” one of the blonde women asked as she shifted a ten-
    month-old girl from one hip to another.
    “No,” he began, “but she’s stil the same wonderful person as before, so she hasn’t changed.”
    Mary’s cheeks grew warm at his words. It was nice she was married to a man who thought so
    wel of her. She fol owed Isaac and Rachel into the parlor, and the two women and their
    children looked at her.
    Dave turned around and smiled. “Mary, these are my sisters, Sal y and Jenny.”
    She nodded at them, noting that Sal y was the older one of the two women.
    “Sal y has a son named Greg and a daughter named Laura,” he continued.
    “I’m ten,” Greg said, his chest puffed out with pride.
    “And I’m eight,” another boy said, standing next to Greg.
    “That’s Jeremy,” Dave added. “He’s Jenny’s oldest son.”
    Greg put his arm around Jeremy and grinned. “We’re as close as brothers.”
    Isaac’s eyebrows furrowed. “What about me?”
    “You’re like a brother, too, squirt,” Greg said and gave him a light punch in the arm.
    “Ow,” Isaac replied, rubbing his arm.
    Looking amused, Dave continued, “Jenny’s other children are Carl and Emma.”
    “Carl’s three and Emma is two months old,” Greg told Mary. “They’re stil babies.”
    Beside her, Rachel held her arms up so Mary picked her daughter up and rubbed her back.
    Rachel, in turn, rested her head against Mary’s shoulders and closed her eyes. “I think she’s
    tired.” She looked at Dave. “Should I put her down for a nap?”
    “I don’t know when she usual y goes to sleep,” he told her.
    “After lunch,” Isaac said.
    Sal y shook her head and sighed. “I can’t believe your son remembers things better than you
    do, David.”
    Surprised that his sister should cal him that instead of Dave, she wanted to ask her why, but
    Jenny said, “I think Emma needs a nap, too. Mary, can I put her down to sleep in Rachel’s
    room?”
    “Yes, of course,” Mary replied, hiding her apprehension. It was unsettling to see al these
    people and know they knew her but she didn’t know them.
    “Just my luck,” Sal y mused as she looked at her daughter who was wide awake. “Laura slept
    al the way here.”
    “Probably because you were yapping the whole way,” Dave teased before he turned to Greg
    and Jeremy. “You boys want to help me pick bugs off the corn?”
    Remembering her promise to Isaac, Mary asked, “Can Isaac go with you, too?”
    Dave glanced at his son who shot him a hopeful look and nodded. “Sure.”
    Wondering why her son didn’t think he could get the same response she did when Dave so
    easily granted her request, she watched Isaac as he fol owed his father and two cousins out
    the front door.
    After they were gone, Sal y turned to Mary and smiled. “I’l wait down here and watch Carl and
    Laura while you two put the others down. Then we can have a good talk.”
    Not knowing what else to say, Mary nodded and led Jenny out of the room and up the stairs.
    “Emma is two months old?”
    Jenny cuddled her sleepy child and nodded. “Yes. I love having boys, but I was happy when I
    found out I had a girl. When I was little, I had this vision of being close to my daughter when
    she grew up. My ma always says that Sal y and I are closer to her because we’re girls. She
    loves her sons, of course, but I think women can talk more intimately than