Leota's Garden by Francine Rivers Read Free Book Online Page A

she gathered the courage to walk to the store again. She stood gazing at her supplies. A jar of bread-and-butter pickle chips, a half pound of butter, an almost-empty jar of mayonnaise, four plastic-wrapped cheese slices, and one small mason jar of apricots. It was the last one of the hundreds she had put up over the years. For two years it had sat like an orphan on the pantry shelf before she gave in yesterday and tucked it in her refrigerator. How many apricots and cherries and plums had rotted on the ground over the last few years? What a crying, shameful waste it was!
    Fruit trees needed tending. They didn’t live the long lives of oaks or redwoods. They needed pruning and care. Ignored, they declined into scraggly, woody trees that produced less and less fruit. Insects infested them and they became diseased. Winds came up and branches broke off. After a few years, a tree that had once produced enough fruit for an entire neighborhood wouldn’t produce enough for the birds and one little old lady.
    Leota slammed the refrigerator door and walked into the living room. Weary, she sank down into Bernard’s old easy chair. It fit her perfectly. After Bernard died, she’d spent the better part of three weeks covering it with a thick, pretty, aqua fabric. The work had been good therapy. Now, after thirty years of widowhood, she had worn down the nap, leaving the chair arms, headrest, and seat cushions almost bare—as well as permanently indented. But it fit her the way it had fit Bernard after all those nights of sitting and staring.
    She was becoming like him. Sitting. Staring. Waiting.
    Thinking about the past.
    Her thoughts were often on the good times she had had over the years. Sometimes just getting old was the hardest cross to bear. She used to walk around Lake Merritt just for the pure pleasure of hearing the birds sing, seeing the children sailing their boats, feeling the sunshine on her shoulders. And all those years she had worked, she had stood on city corners waiting for a bus to bring her within five blocks of home. She had worked hours in the garden, sometimes until the sun went down, and still had enough energy left over to go to a dance hall with a friend and do a fast Lindy. She had been a strong woman, full of energy.
    Now . . . now all she did was walk from her kitchen to the living room to the bathroom to the living room to the bedroom. She had worn a path into her carpet. Only her mind wandered now, traveling wherever it would. From past to present. Across the city. Across a nation. Around the world. Sometimes into the heavens. Or down to hell.
    Oh, Lord, I used to dream of going to Europe. I wanted to see London, Rome, Paris, Vienna. I still do, but I’m old, so old just thinking about walking five blocks to the grocery store and back again wears me out.
    Maybe if I had company it wouldn’t be so bad.
    Someone.
    Anyone.
    She thought about calling George and discarded the idea. It was just past noon. He would be working. No two-hour lunches for her son. He had given her his office number, but she knew by the expression on his face as he did so that the last thing he wanted was his mother calling. “In case of emergency,” he’d said. But even then . . .
    No. She could wait until later. Seven maybe, if she was still in the mood. She’d called at five thirty once, thinking he would be home. Shehad heard cars and trucks in the background. When she asked where he was, he said he was in his car, a convertible at the time. It scared her half to death thinking of him holding a telephone in one hand and driving down the freeway with the other. She’d told him to put both hands on the steering wheel and hung up. She’d waited for him to call her back when he got home. When he didn’t, she called his house thinking he’d been killed on the freeway. His wife, Jeanne, had answered. Yes, he’d made it home safely. No, he hadn’t mentioned she had called. He was in his den working on a project. She’d