Written on My Heart Read Online Free PDF

right away. As always, I couldn’t help but stare at the scar that ran most of the length of her right cheek, the result of a car accident when she had been a teenager. She squeezed my arms and I locked onto her gray eyes. “We miss him, don’t we?” she said. Gin tickled my nostrils. Since my father’s death almost two years earlier, Stella had gone on several drunken benders. I nodded a little before pulling away from her as gently as I could. I missed my father like crazy, but it was my wedding day.
    Dottie did her maid-of-honor duty and stepped between us. “Now, Stella,” she said, “don’t insult the pregnant bride on her wedding day. Let’s go toast all the virgins we know. I’m thinking it will be a half a shot-glass-full, at least.” She threw her right arm over Stella’s thin shoulder and walked her over to a makeshift bar set up on a folding table in front of a couple of sturdy forsythia bushes.
    â€œHello, daughter-in-law,” Ida said from behind me.
    â€œOh, Ida!” I cried as I spun around. “The petticoat. The petticoat is . . . it’s . . .”
    Evie sauntered by. “Don’t cry,” she muttered.
    Ida smiled. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. “You look absolutely lovely. It’s time for your first dance. Are you feeling up to it?”
    I nodded. “Might as well get it over with.” Neither Bud nor I was a dancer in private, let alone in public. We’d practiced a few times, but thesize of my belly, and our own clumsiness and giggle fits, had blocked our progress.
    Maureen ran up to Ida and me. “All set,” she said. “You nod, and I’ll put on the record for you.”
    â€œThanks,” I said, feeling a rush of goofy love for all of Bud’s family. Maureen tried to wrap me in a hug. When the baby kicked between us, she jumped back. “Whoa!” she said.
    â€œSaying hi, Aunt Maureen,” I said. Maureen dashed over to the record player.
    My eyes swept the side lawn for my husband and found him downing beer with Glen over by the beach-rose bushes. I nodded his way and he joined us.
    â€œReady?” I asked him.
    â€œReady or not,” he said.
    We both jumped when Maureen shouted, “And now, the bride and groom are going to dance their first dance.”
    Bud blushed, the twenty-odd people in the yard clapped, and Maureen set the needle on the old 45 rpm record. It scratched and popped its way onto “Love Me Tender,” by Elvis Presley. Bud took my right hand with his left and threaded his right arm around my bulk. The minute Elvis started to sing, I was gone. “I shouldn’t have picked this song. It was my parents’ song,” I choked out between sobs.
    â€œHush,” Bud said, “it can be our song, okay?” He wiped away my tears with his fingers. “It says what I think about you. I’m happy you picked it.”
    I blinked the tears back into the box of sorrowful keepsakes I kept inside my heart. “I remember Carlie and Leeman waltzing in the kitchen to it. I miss them so much, Bud.”
    â€œI know you do,” Bud said. “But you got me and Junior. No one’s going to take us away from you.”
    â€œOkay if I cut in?” Glen asked.
    â€œI don’t know as you’re supposed to cut in during the first song. But you timed it just right. Glad you’re here,” I said. He had a knack for doing and saying the wrong thing at the right time.
    Glen was about four inches taller than Bud, who was my height. It felt nice to look up into his snapping black eyes. He was only a couple of months younger than Dottie and me. He and Bud were like mismatched twins, so different, but as close to each other as Dottie and me.
    â€œGlad I’m here too,” Glen said. “Wish I could stay longer.” Right after high school graduation he had joined the army and had gone through