He was cold.

Mom made a sobbing sound and rubbed his shoulder and arms harder. “I have some bread saved for you. Wake up. ”

Meredith had never heard her mother sound so desperate. In truth, she’d never heard anyone sound like that, but she understood: it was the sound you made when the floor dropped out from beneath you, and you were falling.

The last thing Meredith wanted to think about was what she should have said to her father, but there it was, a shadowy reminder of last night, standing beside her, whispering poison. Had she told him she loved him?

She felt the sting of tears, but knew she couldn’t give in now. If she did, she’d be lost. She wished sharply, desperately, that it could be different, just this once, that she could be the child, taken into her mother’s arms, but that wasn’t how this would go. She went to the phone and dialed 911.

“My father has died,” she said softly into the receiver. When she’d given out all the information, she returned to the bed and touched her mother’s shoulder. “He’s gone, Mom. ”

Her mother looked up at her, wild-eyed.

“He’s so cold,” Mom said, sounding plaintive and afraid, almost childlike. “They always die cold. . . . ”

“Mom?”

Her mother drew back, staring uncomprehendingly at her husband. “We’ll need the sled. ”

Meredith helped her mother to her feet. “I’ll make you some tea, Mom. We can have it while they . . . take him. ”

“You found someone to take him away? What will it cost us?”

“Don’t worry about that, Mom. Come on. Let’s go downstairs. ” She took her mother by the arm, feeling like the stronger of the two for the first time ever.

“He is my home,” her mother said, shaking her head. “How will I live without him?”

“We’ll all still be here, Mom,” Meredith said, wiping away her own tears. It was a hollow reassurance that did nothing to ease this pain in her chest. Her mother was right. He was home, the very heart of them. How would they stand life without him?

Nina had been out in the orchard since before dawn, trying to lose herself in photography. For a short time, it had worked. She’d been mesmerized by the skeletal fruit trees, turned into crystalline works of art by the icicles that hung from the limbs. Against a tangerine and pink dawn sky, they were stunning. Her dad would love these portraits of his beloved trees.

She would do today what she should have done decades ago—she’d enlarge and frame a series of apple tree shots. Each tree was a representative of her father’s life’s work, and he’d love the reminders of how much he’d accomplished. Maybe she could even go through the family photos (not that there were many) and find old pictures of the orchard.

Recapping her lens, she turned slightly, and there was Belye Nochi, its peaked roof on copper fire in the new light. It was too early yet to take her dad some coffee, and God knew her mother wouldn’t want to sit at the kitchen table with her youngest daughter, so Nina packed up her gear and walked the long way up to her sister’s house. She’d started from a spot deep in the back of the orchard; by the time she reached the road, she was actually breathing hard.

Really, she couldn’t believe that her sister did this run every day.

When she reached the old farmhouse, she couldn’t help smiling. Every inch of the place was decorated for Christmas. Poor Jeff must spend months putting up lights.

It wasn’t a surprise. Meredith had always loved the holidays.

Nina knocked on the front door and opened it.

The dogs appeared immediately, greeting her with enthusiasm.

“Aunt Nina!” Maddy ran toward her, throwing her arms around Nina and giving her a big hug. Last night’s meeting had been too reserved for both of them.

“Hey, Mad,” Nina said, smiling. “I hardly recognize you, kiddo. You’re gorgeous. ”

“And I was what, a total bow-wow before?” Maddy teased.

“Total. ” Nina grinned. Maddy took her by the hand and led her into the kitchen, where Jeff was at the table reading The New York Times and Jillian was making pancakes.

Nina actually paused. Last night had been so artificial—with the dark room and the fairy tale and all that unspoken grief—that Nina hadn’t had time to really see her nieces. Now she did. Maddy looked young, still gangly and coltish, with her long, wild brown hair and thick eyebrows and oversized mouth, but Jillian was a woman, serious and composed. It was already easy to picture Jillian as a doctor. There was an invisible line, straight and true, from the pudgy blond girl who’d caught bugs all summer and studied them in jars, to the tall young lady at the stove. And Maddy was still the spitting image of Meredith at that age, but more buoyant than Meredith had ever allowed herself to be.

Strangely enough, Nina felt the passing of her own years when she looked at her nieces’ adult faces. It occurred to her for the first time that she was edging toward the middle of her life. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Of course, she should have had this thought before, but when you lived alone and did what you wanted, when you wanted, time seemed somehow not to pass.

“Hey, Aunt Neens,” Jillian said, removing the last pancake from the griddle.

Tags: Kristin Hannah Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net