Scrappily Ever After by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online

you seen Eric while you’re there?” Paige asked.
    â€œHe’s been in and out,” Vera said. “Annie and DeeAnn have been here and gone already. I’ll have to leave soon to get Elizabeth.”
    â€œI’ll stop by after work,” Paige said.
    â€œSee you,” Vera said and hung up.
    â€œWait—” Paige started to say, but Vera had already hung up. Paige shrugged. She’d find out later why Vera’s landline was disconnected. Paige and Earl had thought about disconnecting theirs because they rarely used it anymore, and she wondered if that’s what Vera and Bea had done.
    Paige often ate her lunch in her car. It was quiet. She read or chatted on the phone with her friends. Sometimes she went out for lunch, but she almost never ate in the school building. She didn’t like most of her colleagues. At this point in her career, they were mostly younger than she and she found it difficult to relate to them. She wanted to retire, but the school kept asking her to stay.
    As Paige reached for the handle of the car door to exit, her phone rang. Randy.
    â€œHey, Mom,” he said. “I’m doing a Skype interview with Pamela tomorrow.”
    â€œGood luck,” she said.
    â€œAre you sitting in the car?” he asked after a moment.
    â€œYep,” she said.
    He laughed. “So antisocial. Anyway, I’m looking forward to chatting with her and seeing what exactly she has in mind.”
    â€œHumph,” Paige said. She was distracted by the Donna thing.
    â€œAre you okay?”
    She told him what had happened with Donna. “It’s scary,” she said.
    â€œThe last time I heard about her she was doing so well,” he said.
    â€œYes, but she was working hard to keep that scholarship. Evidently, it was too much.”
    â€œShe was always very driven. I understand her wanting to do well.”
    â€œThey’re afraid she’ll lose that scholarship,” Paige said.
    â€œWell, so what if she does? At least she will be healthy and happy and alive.”
    Paige could not help but beam. How had she gotten such a smart and wise son? “But I remember culinary school,” she said in a teasing voice.
    â€œI was afraid you’d bring that up,” Randy muttered. He had worked himself ragged, developing an ulcer when he was still in school. “In any case, my interview is tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes.”
    â€œOkay, Randy. I’ll be waiting.” As she walked back into the school, she mused over the changes in her life. You never knew what direction your life would take you. A few years ago, she had been wounded by her son’s announcement that he was gay. The church that they’d belonged to had a firm stance on the issue. She and Earl had gotten married in that church and had attended faithfully. But the longer she’d been away from her son, the more apparent it had become that the church could not fill the void his absence created.
    She started to listen to herself instead of the preacher, started talking with Earl about it, and eventually they’d left the church.
    She could have never imagined that Randy would come back to Virginia. She was afraid to get too hopeful; it would be a dream come true to have her boy closer. Of course, now he was a twenty-eight-year-old man. She’d lost too much time with him already. She blinked back a tear, took a deep breath, and opened the car door.
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    Vera made arrangements for Elizabeth to stay with Annie so that she could stay with Sheila for a while at the hospital. When she returned to Beatrice’s house, Detective Bryant pulled up along the curb. Vera’s heart started to race. What was he doing here?
    â€œVera,” he called to her as she kept walking toward the door. She didn’t want to turn around. He was bad news. Maybe he was here to tell her that Beatrice’s body had been found over at the bottom of some