Warm Wuinter's Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

a
post-prandial paste of milk, vanilla and powdered sugar into which
she crumbled hunks of a frozen graham cracker crust. The crust was
one which was kept in the freezer for special occasions, which
never came, except for Dilly. Although she wore her street shoes in
the house, and although her appetite for high cruciferous, carotene
and fiber rich meals was small because of all the white foods that
she secretly wolfed down on the short ride home from the grocery or
while hiding in the gloom of the laundry room, or, occasionally,
even ate in the sanctuary of the bathroom, and although her four
times a week five mile jog rarely covered more than two and was apt
to be more a contemplative stroll, and even though she was more
than thirty pounds overweight on a five foot two inch frame, and
even though her cholesterol level stayed above three hundred
despite all the thinking that she did about it and even though her
blood pressure was 145/110, Dilly knew that her L.E. was excellent.
She could transcend her own theories because she, like her mother,
had good genes. Dilly never doubted that she and her mother would
outlive their husbands. The only question was how long they would
be a widowed. In order to rescue her mother from a long widowhood,
it was Dilly’s intention to sacrifice her well-deserved vacation by
using the Labor Day family reunion to fix her father’s life.
    Dilly collected health disasters with the
same dedication others brought to baseball cards or Hummel
figurines. As she packed, she reviewed her collection with the
object of finding those with the most potential impact upon her
father…the carcinogens being created at the barbeque grill he
insisted on using for almost every summer meal. It would be a nice
retirement for him to be sitting in a hospital with drains gurgling
from where his tumor-ridden stomach had been removed…round worm
eggs hanging from the tips of every blade of grass, just waiting
for the precise moment that his lymphatic systems weakened enough
to invade the body and settle in their favorite places—the eyes and
brain. Stupid, blind and drooling. Was that the husband he wished
to be? …Shellfish toxins, capable of paralyzing or passing on
hepatitis that were sure to be carried in the quahogs and mussels
that he gathered in the cove. His muscles locking up as he was
driving along the traffic-congested lanes of Route One with God
only knew how many grandchildren in the car. No one ate shellfish
anymore. No one. Especially not raw.
    This time, Dilly promised herself, she would
be as adamant as Christ had meant Peter to be. She would be a rock.
The gates of hell would not prevail. The killing must stop. As she
accessorized the kids’ piles of clothing with flip-flops,
learning-enhancing books, and politically-correct toys, she
mentally listed the foods that would not be allowed this time.
Hot-dogs. Hamburgers, if grilled. Sausages, whether kielbasa,
Italian, linguica or chorizo, unless made from turkey. Potato
chips. Potato salad , unless made with yogurt. Baked beans if made
with the Koster family recipe using big chunks of nitrosamine and
cholesterol-laden bacon.
    As a just reward for finishing the children’s
packing more than seventy-two hours before embarkation, Dilly
climbed up on the kitchen stool to dig out the marshmallows. She
prized loose four of the units which were as hard and white as the
rubber ends of doorstoppers. Two she frosted with lavish dollops of
peanut butter. Over the years, the threat of being caught had
taught Dilly Koster how to bolt her treats with the same acumen as
a dog would a scrap of steak fat; however given the inherent
unchewability of the hardened marshmallow and with the addition of
a huge glob of viscid peanut butter, these treats could only be
savored. Dilly’s eyes rolled back as she rolled the adamantine
confection around in her mouth seeking some slight fissure or
weakness where her teeth could gain purchase. As a snake, after
swallowing a large