Dust by Eva Everson (epub e reader .TXT) 📕

wouldn’t—come easily to her. And while he’d tried to get her out of his mind—while he’d tried to stop the plot from forming—he found that he could not. Somewhere down the line he had to have at least one thing—one person—he could control, rather than feeling as if the whole world controlled him.

He had hoped it would be her. Now that he knew about the child born out of wedlock, he was pretty sure he could bank on it. Unless, of course, she’d had some kind of spiritual conversion, which the job at Rhinestones negated.

Everything balanced; he’d make certain she both understood and passed calculus and she’d give him the one thing Mary Helen and Stevie could not.

Tomorrow, a new life would begin. Piece of cake.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Allison

The second chapter in Mrs. Morgan’s marriage book talked about redeeming time. Not yesterday’s time. Tomorrow’s. Which, in some sense, becomes today’s. According to her theory, to redeem time, to make it work with you rather than against you, the total woman will sit down at night and compile a list of all the things she needs to do tomorrow. Then she numbers them according to importance. Priority. She then tackles them, Mrs. Morgan says, one at a time, never skipping to #2 until #1 has been completed. And certainly never worrying about #5 until numbers one through four are done.

According to Mrs. Morgan, Mrs. Kennedy kept such a list that was maintained hourly during her time as First Lady in the White House.

So who was I to go against the tide of Mrs. Kennedy?

To be honest, at first, I had no intention of keeping such a list. It seemed almost too adult, even for someone like me who, in the short course of a year, had grown up way more than I ever thought possible. But then Julie talked about her list as though it were the Ten Commandments, never to be deviated from. And, I noticed, Miss Justine kept a list—although the notion that Miss Justine had ever read The Total Woman, much less put its mandates to practice, seemed too far-fetched. So I finally broke down, purchased a composition book, and began my own daily lists of tasks—some of vital importance (like making dinner, dressing Michelle, dressing myself, and going to work) and some not quite so important (sweep the back porch, organize my sock drawer, write a letter to Grand). If I got to those things, more power to me, but if I didn’t, they’d save for another day.

My only concession—my only personal stamp—was that I didn’t compose the list at night in some cosmic expectation concerning the next day. Instead, I got up before the sun—who would have ever guessed I was a morning person—made coffee, and then sat at the dining room table with a steaming cup, my composition book, and a Bic pen.

Remarkably, Mrs. Morgan was as right about the making of a list as she was about most of the things in the book. At least as far as Julie and I were concerned.

Julie, whose second child was due in about three months. Julie, whose life—in spite of being married to a man we’d originally deemed “the bum”—had turned out more perfect than any of us could have imagined. Dean’s job had not only provided steady income, in one year he’d won an award for a piece he’d written, published in a column he’d created. Lowcountry Profiles of Chatham had become—to my father’s shock and my mother’s delight—the must-read of the Sunday paper. Right after their first child—a boy, my nephew—had been born, Dean and Julie purchased a ranch-style home in a subdivision so new, the front-lawn sod hadn’t fully rooted to the earth. Three bedrooms, all of which would soon be filled.

I, on the other hand, had managed to miscarry not once but twice. And while Westley had become the darling of downtown and Michelle was the princess of everywhere she went, I had morphed into the shadow who stood behind them both. Even Cindie—according to the reports she gave Westley who then thought it was his duty to share with me—glowed in every hall of DeKalb College, her academic scores impressive. Except, as Westley had informed me a few nights earlier, for calculus, which she worried would be her undoing.

“When did you talk to Cindie?” I asked, my hands busy wiping a dish already dry enough to go into the cabinet where it belonged. I looked over my shoulder, wanting to read his expression, but finding nothing noteworthy.

He leaned against the kitchen doorframe, a cup of instant decaf coffee in hand, and blew at it, his eyes locked on me. “This afternoon.” He took a sip of the drink, then swallowed as if it may have still been too hot to consume.

“She called?” I placed the bowl in the cabinet; my angst over Cindie’s calls was no need to rub the pattern off.

“Like clockwork. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“And Saturday,” I reminded him.

“You know that’s to talk to Michelle.”

I wrangled another dish—this one a plate—from the avocado-green-coated dish drainer. “Which always leaves her upset,” I reminded him.

“Hey,” he said, his word soft but commanding. “Stop.”

I turned and leaned against the sink. “You’re not the one who has to deal with it, Wes.”

“I do, too, deal with it.”

“No … that’s when you usually run whatever errand you feel has to be taken care of right then, leaving me to be the one who holds her and rocks her and reminds her that Mommy loves her and Daddy loves her and—”

“And Mama loves her, too.”

I placed the plate on the countertop and reached for another. Yes. Mama. The name she’d started calling me a little over two months ago. The name that brought both sunshine and heartache, especially after the second miscarriage. “Yeah,” I said, now studying the design of the plate with more intensity than it deserved.

“Hey,” Westley said again.

When I didn’t look up—when I couldn’t for the layer of tears