He's Her by Mimi Barbour Read Free Book Online

stay away from her for any length of time that she instinctively hugged him to her and whispered in his ear.
    “I’ll miss you, lovey.” She felt a small shudder ripple though his undernourished frame. She swallowed the moisture that gathered at the back of her throat. The next few days at school looked bleak.

Chapter Six
     
     
    By the time Carrie’s workday was over, exhaustion had beaten her down. Rhett had absented himself and left emptiness in his stead. She missed his caustic impertinence, but taking the advice he’d given her and copying his style worked rather well. The students performed much better, and she enjoyed teaching children who were involved and well behaved.
    All day her mind teemed with questions and sorted through solutions. Rhett’s silent suffering ate away at her. She couldn’t understand why he was able to close down to her when it seemed her lines were always open to him. Afraid to focus on the man, because their history showed her that he could tune in whenever it suited him, she blanked out her private thoughts. This whole mysterious metamorphosis had her constantly questioning her sanity.
    She stepped into the dingy hallway and called out, “I’m home, Gran,” as she made her way into their small, lighted kitchen. Her grandfather continued to read his newspaper and didn’t bother to look up. Her grandmother bustled over to her, arms open wide, reaching, and they embraced. Carrie went to her granddad’s side and leaned over to buss his cheek. “Hello, pet. How was your day?”
    “Same as yesterday and the day before.” He lowered the paper in order to look over the top and glare at her. Before he could speak his mind, the cheery voice from across the room interrupted.
    “Bless my soul, lovey, you’re just in time for supper.” Her grandmother’s face was lit with the spontaneous joy she wore every time Carrie appeared.
    It never failed to amaze Carrie how blessed she was, to be loved as much as this tiny woman loved her. If it weren’t for her Gran, she’d most likely be slaving in a restaurant or shop.
    After working each day, cooking at the neighbourhood pub, Gran had taken in piano students every evening for years in order to pay for Carrie’s private school education and then later for teacher’s college. Despite her husband, who felt Carrie should go to the neighbourhood public school, Gran had slaved and saved. She had been adamant. Carrie, their only grandchild, would have her chance.
    In a way, it had made life harder for Carrie because the kids on her street shunned her and called her a snob. The girls she went to school with didn’t live in her area, and so she grew up as a lonely outsider.
    Carrie often wondered if part of the old woman’s devotion was her way of making peace with her own daughter’s ghost, that of Carrie’s unwed teenage mother, Theresa. The sad story was told to her on the day she herself became a teenager. Her Gran, tears pouring down her face, confessed to Carrie that after Theresa broke the news of her pregnancy, her father’s unbearable attitude had sent the girl fleeing into the dark streets, crying hysterically. The guilt of not supporting Theresa against the furious man right then and there was a heartbreaking memory Gran agonized over. The remorseful father searched for his daughter day after day but to no avail.
    By the time Theresa returned home, defeated, she’d become rundown and weak and was close to delivery. The birth had been more than the slight, undernourished girl’s body could bear. She’d lived only hours after Carrie appeared, just long enough to have her mother promise to name the baby Carrie and to love and protect her and give her a home.
    Whether it was his daughter’s death, his grandchild’s birth, or a life spent in a fruitless and boring job, Carrie never knew precisely what made her granddad act the way he did. She only knew he was a miserable man married to an angel.
    Gran happily set a place for Carrie