Scrapbook of Secrets by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online Page B

all, nothing is lacking,’” he would whisper to her in the wee hours of the morning after he had just delivered a baby or performed an emergency appendectomy. He would wake her gently and they would make love until they both were spent. He would lie next to her, snoring and murmuring.
    About a year after he had died, he came to her. He sat on the edge of her bed and told her that she needed to get rid of his clothes, that the living needed them. And so the very next day, she boxed up the bulk of it and gave it to Goodwill.
    It didn’t frighten her to see her husband’s ghost—for she always believed in the possibility—one doesn’t study physics, then quantum physics, for a whole life, without seeing the possibilities of life after death—and the possibility that there is more to the world than what people think they see and feel. Besides, it gave her hope that she’d join him when the time came. She also felt a great comfort, knowing he was still around. It would help, of course, if he would come to her when she wanted him. Instead, he showed up at the damnedest times.
    Once, she was on the toilet. He knew she didn’t like him being anywhere around when she was using the bathroom. Gas pains ripped through so badly that she thought she might die—and there he stood next to the sink.
    “Don’t worry, Bea. It’s not your destiny to die in the bathroom on the toilet.”
    “Well,” she told him, “thank God for that. Now, get the hell out of here, Ed.”
    Ah, well, maybe she was crazy. Maybe he was a figment of her imagination. But even if he were, she knew it didn’t matter. Imagination was a powerful thing. Sometimes she wondered if half the world wasn’t based on it. Where was the line between imagination and so-called reality?
    Now, this knife-in-the-neck business concerned her. Who would do such a thing? And what would have happened if it had not been lodged just exactly where it was? She could have died—or worse, been paralyzed, at the mercy of the likes of Vera and Sheila, a pair of midlife fools, if ever there were two. Sheila and her damn scrapbooks; and Vera and her damn dancing school, flitting around town like a diva, made up like a hussy half the time. It never mattered what Bea told her daughter. Vera had always had her own mind—if it could be called that. Her daughter was so different from her that it was hard to believe that she carried her in her womb. Didn’t give a lick about the beauty of mathematics and could care less about chemistry, let alone physics. She wanted to dance.
    Beatrice smiled. Oh, but to watch her dance. Her daughter inherited her father’s long limbs and the grace—Bea just figured it was a gift from the universe. It was like watching an angel move across the stage. She would never understand why Vera insisted on coming back to Cumberland Creek to open the dance school, rather than staying in New York. But she was sure that Bill was at the root of it. Boring old Bill, who was steady and stood by her daughter, and that was a good thing. But she never saw a spark between him and Vera. Curious.
    But she did see an enormous amount of tenderness between them, at times. She always knew that Bill loved Vera, but Vera never behaved like a woman in love, even from the very start. Never even took his last name—Ledford. Was dance the only thing that Vera loved?
    Damn, her neck hurt. Suddenly a shot of pain rippled through Bea and woke her from her revelry. Had she been sleeping or just thinking?
    She hit the button for the nurse. She could do with a little more morphine. Yes, she could.

Chapter 8
    Vera was pleased that she could make her Monday ten o’clock class with the preschoolers. It was one that she cherished. Half of them probably would not make it until they were eight or nine years old—when the real work started. They would get bored or get involved with other things—mostly soccer, one of Bill’s great loves.
    He helped send a lot of juvenile offenders to