Willow Read Online Free PDF Page B

the sidewalk staring in at me.
"Are you coming or not?" I demanded, holding the door open. She looked up and down,
"Maybe he misunderstood." she said, "and thought I didn't need him to take us back."
"Get in!"
She grimaced and got into the cab as if she were about to sit in the electric chair. I reached past her and pulled the door shut.
"Spring City General, and as quickly as you can," I urged the driver,
"Right." he said, and we shot away from the curb.
"Well, my goodness," Margaret said. "Now I know what it must feel like to be kidnapped."
Who in his right mind would want to kidnap you? I thought, and mentally urged the traffic to move along faster.
"Mother says it's good to occupy your mind with other things when you're in a situation like this," Margaret rattled on as our taxi wove in and out of traffic.
I could hear her droning in the background. but I really didn't hear a word she was saying. Her voice took on the monotony of bees gathering nectar in our garden. I pushed it away. I'm more like my father than I believed I was, I thought, and smiled to myself. I know how to focus and turn off people.
"It's not funny," I finally heard Margaret say. She practically shouted in my ear.
"What?"
"The shape of the wedding cake is very significant. Just think of the picture of it with Ashley and me."
I shook my head. "Who said it was funny?"
"You were smiling like you thought it was," she accused with a pout, drawing up her puckered little prune mouth like a drawstring purse.
"I was thinking of something else, Margaret. I didn't hear anything about your cake."
"What? Why were you thinking of something else?"
"I was doing just what you advised me to do, Margaret. I was occupying my mind," I said as we pulled up to the front of the hospital.
I paid the driver quickly and practically jogged into the lobby. Margaret moaning and groaning about having to keep up with my pace.
"Where?" I said, spinning on her and nearly knocking her over with my carry-on bag. For a moment, she looked absolutely confused. "Where do they have my father?"
"Oh. Something called CCU. I think." "Well, lead the way. Margaret."
She sauntered to the elevator, smiled at a young intern emerging, and then got in and pushed the button for the second floor.
"I've always been afraid of your father," she confessed. He always looks so disapproving."
"It might be because he disapproves," I muttered, and stepped out to follow the signs indicating the direction of the CCU.
I pulled up short at the doorway of the waiting room. Aunt Agnes was sitting on the sofa and looking up at a nurse. She was nodding gently and dabbing her eyes with the end of her silk handkerchief. I had rarely seen her cry, but on the few occasions I had, she seemed capable of controlling the flow of her tears, permitting- them to emerge only one at a time, alternately from eve to eye, and only after each had fully appeared. She pressed the corner of the handkerchief with her right forefinger and touched each tear cautiously, absorbing it and then moving over in anticipation of the next.
She had my father's eves and mouth, but her chin was nearly nonexistent, sweeping up sharply under her lower lip and into the flow of her jawbone, and very tight, pale skin, a shade lighter than the sepia tones in old photographs. Her forehead looked infected with age spots she tried to keep as hidden as possible under long bangs of gray hair the color of a wet mop.
Unlike my adoptive mother. Aunt Agnes refused to wear a wig. She thought it was vain and undignified to battle too hard against aging. Aside from a little lipstick and some rouge, her store of cosmetics was anemic compared to the arsenal of skin creams, eye shadow, brushes, pencils, and makeup kits my adoptive mother had kept ready for her wars against wicked time.
Aunt Agnes had been a thin woman for as long as I could remember. Amou used to refer to her as Sonora da Passaro , "Bird Lady," because of her fragile bone structure and the way her nose had