Sadie-In-Waiting by Annie Jones Read Free Book Online

undivided attention….”
    “An hour? An hour of your undivided attention, Ed?” That newest bit of information hit Sadie like a sucker punch.
    “Just a little bit of time, Sadie, that’s all.”
    “A little bit of time out of the middle of the day. An hour for my husband to laugh with and joke with and discuss his work with and…and…and give his attention to—anddon’t take this wrong, Carmen, I think the world of you—a woman who sees him mainly as a means of hitting her sales quota and winning a quarterly contest. While I sit at home day after day literally pining my heart out for someone to notice me, someone to talk to me.”
    Ed hung his head.
    Carmen looked at her shoes.
    Only the sound of brakes squealing out in the street broke the silence.
    Sadie turned to storm out.
    “This is ridiculous.” Ed threw the towel to the ground. “Sadie, wait!”
    Wait? She stopped in her tracks and jerked her head up. Wait for what? Hadn’t she waited long enough?
    In fact that’s all she had done. As the years went by, Sadie had become nothing more than a lady-in-waiting.
    Waiting on her teenage children to stop looking at her as if they thought she had the brain capacity of a half-stuffed sock monkey. For them to, as it says in Proverbs “rise up and call her blessed.”
    Waiting for the day when the man she’d married would finally decide he’d worked enough, come home early, sweep her into his arms and tell her how much he loved and appreciated her.
    Waiting for things to settle down emotionally and perk up romantically, to work out financially, and for her tummy, hips and thighs to finally, finally, fit into the fabulous, electric-blue size 8 summer dress she’d splurged on more than two years ago.
    Sadie was waiting, basically, for her “real” life to begin.
    She had not deluded herself. She had expected to be in for a long wait.
    But then she had been waiting most of her life.
    Waiting for her wayward mother to one day come walking back through the door.
    Waiting for her two sisters to stop acting like wounded, bickering children and be a real family.
    Waiting for her daddy…
    Daddy . After all these years, Sadie was still waiting for her daddy to grow up.
    Well, maybe she had waited long enough. Maybe it was time, at last, to take action, to start something, as she’d been advised.
    Sadie drew a deep breath and turned on her heel. “Ed, I came here to tell you something. Mayor Furst has offered me a job, and I—”
    The bell dangling from the front door clanged to cut her off.
    “Sadie! Ed! Y’all better get outside quick!” Panic edged Mary Tate’s voice, and then she was gone.
    “Come on.” Ed had his arm around Sadie in a heartbeat, guiding her toward the door.
    Carmen and the new clerk didn’t linger behind, either.
    The old floorboards shook with the combined weight of the four of them practically running for the front door.
    Ed reached the door first and pushed ahead of Sadie, probably thinking to blunt the impact of whatever Mary Tate had beckoned them out to see. “What’s wrong? Are Ryan and Olivia okay?”
    “It’s not the kids.” Mary Tate motioned to Sadie that it was safe to come on out to the sidewalk. Then she pointed to a spot halfway down the block. “It’s the big child.”
    “Martha Tatum Fitts McCrackin!” Moonie climbed from the front seat to the back of his prized vintage yellow boat of a convertible Cadillac, waving like a castaway sailor signaling a rescue ship. He took a seat at the back,in a position not unlike “the girls with high hair” who rode in the holiday parades, and pointed to the crumpled fender. “Looks like I had a bit of trouble at the drive-thru bank.”
    The blonde cupped her hand to her mouth and hollered back the perfect setup for the ornery old man who had just promised Sadie he’d behave for a good three or four days. “That branch doesn’t have a drive-thru, Moonie.”
    “Does now,” Ed muttered seconds before her daddy gave the