Once and Again by Elisabeth Barrett Read Free Book Online Page A

swapped Green Lantern for Spider-Man.
    “Grandma Mary cleaned my room and now I can’t find anything,” Andy complained, pulling his pajama top over his head and slipping on the Spider-Man shirt.
    “We’ll put everything back once she leaves, okay?” she said quietly, ruffling his hair and making it stick up even more.
    When her mom asked to come for a visit, Jane had readily agreed. After all, she wanted Andy to have a relationship with his grandmother. The only problem was that this was tiny Eastbridge, so the only two options were the Lavender Inn, a super-fancy bed-and-breakfast, or the Roadhouse, a junky motel near the highway. Her mother wouldn’t have been comfortable in either place, so here they were, all crammed together in her 600-square-foot walk-up apartment directly over Mountain Laurel Cakes, the bakery in downtown Eastbridge she helped run.
    At least the place smelled good. Right now, the aromas of cinnamon and vanilla wafted up to the apartment—sticky buns, if she wasn’t mistaken, and when it came to her nose, she rarely was.
    “We don’t have to put the stuff back,” Andy said. “I’ll get used to it, I guess.” He shimmied out of his pajama bottoms and dragged on a pair of jeans. “Can I come to the bakery after school today?”
    “You don’t want to hang out with Grandma? She told me she wanted to take you to the library.”
    Andy looked down. “I love Grandma and the library, but I miss you, too.”
    Jane drew him in for a hug. “Oh, honey, I do, too, and I’ve been working so much lately. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you and Grandma come by the bakery after school, and you can do your homework and have a snack there. And you can tell me what kind of cake you’d like me to make for your birthday,” she finished with a smile.
    “Okay! That sounds awesome!”
    She left Andy to finish getting dressed and went into the kitchen. Mary Pringle, her mom, was already up, reading the Eastbridge
Times,
and having her morning coffee and one of the day-old cinnamon buns Jane had brought home from the bakery last night. Mary raised her gaze from the paper in greeting, her silver pageboy barely moving, as if it was specifically cut to stay in place.
    “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t rearrange Andy’s drawers,” she said to her mother, grabbing a mug and pouring herself some coffee. “I wasn’t happy when you messed with all my pots and pans, my dry goods, and the guest room closet, but I dealt with it. The one thing I asked you was not to touch Andy’s room.”
    “And a good morning to you, too.” Her mother’s soft Georgia drawl was deliberately designed to be guilt-inducing—she was sure of it. No matter that she’d lived in New Hampshire for forty-plus years—that drawl had never gone away, forever branding her an outsider. New Englanders didn’t like outsiders, something she’d found out the hard way. There were hierarchies. Social strata. Jane used to care. Now she just cared about Andy.
    “He’s six, Mom. If you mix up his stuff, he freaks out.”
    “ ‘Thank you for cleaning Andrew’s room,’ is all you need to say, Jane,” her mom said, eyes back on the paper. “You know, if you hired a house cleaner to come in, at least once every couple of weeks, it might make things easier.”
    Subtext: If you hadn’t divorced Dan, your life would be better.
    Jane sighed and bit her tongue. Mary loved Dan—still did—and couldn’t understand why her daughter would be so stupid as to leave a man who came with a giant house, a ton of money, and plenty of security. His good looks didn’t hurt, either. The face of an angel and the heart of a devil.
    Dan had been such a bastard that not only had she gone back to her maiden name but she’d legally petitioned to have Andy’s name changed, just so there wouldn’t be any reminder of him. Mary had been shocked by that, too.
    And now, all her mother saw was that she was struggling. Gone were the trappings of the