Scrapbook of the Dead by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online

disappointed.
    DeeAnn tried not to pry in Karen’s personal life. She was a grown woman—at least that’s what DeeAnn kept telling herself.
    â€œYou and your strawberry kitchen,” Karen said as she walked in the door.
    DeeAnn looked up from her mashed potatoes before she plopped more butter in. “I like strawberries. They make me smile.”
    Karen laughed. It was the same sweet rippling laugh it always was, just a bit deeper. “What can I do to help?”
    â€œSet the table. Everything else is in hand.”
    â€œChicken smells great,” Karen said as she reached into the cupboard for plates and headed into the dining room. She was tall and thin like her dad and it was her habit to reach the tallest shelves for DeeAnn, who was a bit shorter but a lot rounder.
    â€œYes, it does.” DeeAnn’s husband, Jacob, came into the room.
    â€œIt needs a few more minutes,” DeeAnn said as if trying to hold him back with her voice. He was so impatient sometimes.
    â€œJust heard about the woman they found this morning,” Jacob said, reaching into the silverware drawer.
    â€œWhat woman?” Karen called from the dining room.
    â€œEsmeralda Martelino,” DeeAnn said, sprinkling more salt into the potatoes.
    â€œHow did you know?” asked Jacob.
    DeeAnn reached down in her cupboard to get a serving bowl for the potatoes and a sharp pain ripped through her back. It flattened her, stomach-first onto the hard linoleum floor. What’s happening? Where is my breath?
    â€œDeeAnn?” She heard Jacob say through her haze of pain.
    â€œMom? What is it?” Karen crouched down beside her.
    â€œMy back,” DeeAnn managed to say. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.” Just breathe, she told herself. But she wasn’t sure she could. It felt like her lower back was on fire and if she moved an inch it would erupt.
    â€œHold on,” Karen said. “Don’t move. Dad, can you get the heating pad warmed up?”
    â€œHeating pad? Do we have a heating pad?” he said with panic in his voice.
    â€œYes, Dad. It’s in the closet next to the bathroom, third shelf down. What does it feel like, Mom—a dull thud? A sharp pain?”
    â€œIt was sharp,” DeeAnn said. “It’s easing off into dull. Feels like something is out of place.”
    â€œHow long have you been having problems? Can you twist around onto your back?” Karen asked.
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œHere it is,” Jacob said, coming into the kitchen and proudly holding up the heating pad.
    DeeAnn and Karen exchanged looks.
    â€œCan you plug it in next to the couch? Also get more pillows. We’re going to need to prop Mom up.” Karen was taking charge of the situation.
    Had DeeAnn not been in such pain, she’d have told her how proud she was of her daughter, the nurse. A grown woman.
    The scent of the chicken reminded DeeAnn that the bird needed to be pulled out of the oven. “The chicken.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” Karen said. “I’ll take care of the chicken. We need to get you to the couch first.”
    Karen. What a kind, knowledgeable, sensible young woman she’s become. DeeAnn looked up into her daughter’s face and saw a woman she could not be more proud of and started to cry.
    â€œOh now,” Jacob said, as he helped her up from the floor, his arm around her shoulder. “DeeAnn, don’t cry, sweetheart.”
    â€œAre you in that much pain?” Karen asked.
    â€œI am,” DeeAnn said, sniffling. But that ’ s not why I ’ m crying , she wanted to say. They would never understand the way she just had seen time stand still, move back and forward, in just a flash. Her daughter, a grown, capable woman . . . with the same face, the same eyes, hell, the same freckles she’d always had. The same freckles DeeAnn’s mother had had. Lord, the woman was a lot like DeeAnn’s own