LITMIR.BIZ

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their order and they each asked for a Diet Coke.

      Susannah waited until she’d left before answering. “I didn’t come to town very often—two or three times in the last five years. Until recently, Mom and Dad drove over to the coast to visit me. Dad died last November.”

      Although Susannah mentioned her father’s passing without apparent emotion, Carolyn detected a small quaver in her friend’s voice. Her own father had been dead several years now, but she continued to feel his loss each and every day.

      “You lost your mom, too, didn’t you?” Susannah asked.

      “Mom died of cancer about two years ago,” Carolyn said, and while her death was equally painful, Carolyn felt that her mother was ready and, in fact, had welcomed death. Her life had been nothing like she’d dreamed, filled with disappointments and disillusionment. And without her husband, she lost whatever contentment she’d managed to find. Brigitte had not succeeded in making many friends or developing interests of her own; that was something Carolyn didn’t like to think about.

      “Dad died of congestive heart failure,” she added. It was a horrible way to die. Carolyn was grateful she’d been with him those last months. They’d always been close, but they’d drawn even closer as the end of his life approached.

      When Carolyn first returned to Colville, she’d assumed she’d be selling off the mill, but during the last months of her father’s life, she realized she couldn’t let go of her heritage. The mill had been in the family for three generations, and now it was hers. Owning Bronson Mills, she’d discovered, was even more of a responsibility than it was a privilege.

      “I’m sorry,” Susannah murmured.

      “Losing my dad was hard,” Carolyn admitted. “The two of us were tight. After I’d been here awhile, I began to feel that no matter where I lived, this town, this place, was my home.”

      “Do you like it—running the mill, I mean?”

      Carolyn smiled, embarrassed to admit the depth of her feelings about the family business. “I love it. I didn’t think I would. The only reason I got my MBA was to please Dad, but I promptly took a job in Oregon working with Techtronics. I enjoyed it and advanced to a management position. I’d just been offered another promotion when I got the call from Dad.”

      “The call?”

      Carolyn would never forget that phone conversation. “His whole life, Dad never asked a single thing of me.” Unlike her mother, who seemed to be consumed by demands, most of which Carolyn was incapable of fulfilling. “He asked me to come home. He needed me. I put in my notice the next day, packed up and headed for Colville.”

      The waitress returned with their drinks and for a moment they were silent.

      “I wish I knew how to help Mom,” Susannah said thoughtfully. “I know I’ll have to move her, but convincing her of that’s going to be hard.”

      Carolyn didn’t envy her friend the task. “What are you planning to do with the house?”

      “Once I know Mom’s comfortable, I’ll probably put it up for sale. Assisted living is expensive. I was shocked when I made a few phone calls and found out exactly how much it costs. Dad provided for Mom, but their largest asset is the equity they have in the house. There’s no question that I’ll have to sell it, and the sooner the better so I can invest the money.”

      “What about taking her to Seattle, to a facility near you?” That seemed more logical to Carolyn.

      “I wish I could get her to budge, but she refuses. Her friends are here—even though she hardly ever sees them—and things are familiar to her. Plus, the housing fees are more reasonable on this side of the mountains than in Seattle.”

      “At least you still have your mother,” Carolyn reminded her. “When mine died, I had this gut-wrenching revelation that I was an orphan. All alone in the world. I was almost fifty years old and I kept thinking I wasn’t ready to be an adult. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

      “Not at all,” Susannah said. “I feel the same way. I hate having to make decisions about my mother without Doug to talk to.” She swallowed visibly. “It’s not fair. My brother should be helping me with this. Doug should be here.”

      Carolyn bent her head to hide her reaction to hearing his name. A twinge of pain passed through her. His death had hit her hard.

      Susannah stared into the distance. “I miss him. My brother died thirty-two years ago, and I still miss him.” She lowered her eyes to her drink and swirled the straw around, clinking the ice cubes against the glass. “Doug and I should be dealing with this together.”

      Carolyn didn’t want to talk about Doug. “You’re still married, aren’t you?” she asked. “That’s what your mother said when I ran into her.”

      “Oh, yes…Joe and I have been together for almost twenty-five years. We have two kids, both nearly grown. Joe’s a dentist and I teach fifth grade.”

      “I always thought you’d marry Jake.” As Carolyn recalled, her friend had pined for him the entire nine months she’d spent in France. She’d waited endlessly for his letters. In the beginning he’d written, but he’d stopped after the first few months. Then Doug had been killed and Susannah had gone into a deep depression.

      A faraway look came over her friend. “I always believed I’d marry him, too….” She ended with a shrug. “He’d moved by the time I returned from France. I tried to find him but I never could. I wonder what happened to him—why he left and why he didn’t come back.”

      Carolyn was furious with him for abandoning Susannah when she’d needed him most. She remembered how Susannah had asked around for him after their return. But he was gone; his family, too.

      “My last time with Jake was horrible,” her friend continued, seemingly lost in her thoughts. “I sneaked out of the house, and we met in my mother’s garden. We sat on that stone bench, behind the trellis. It was always so romantic there, and it smelled so lovely.” She raised her eyes to meet Carolyn’s. “Jake wanted me to run away with him and I didn’t have the courage to do it. I was only seventeen. I said no. In the morning my parents drove me to Spokane to catch a flight to France.”

      “And you never heard from him again?”

      “Other than those few letters after I left, nothing.”

      Carolyn leaned closer. “You did the right thing. Can you imagine how you’d feel if your daughter eloped at that age?”

      Susannah smiled. “That certainly puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? My daughter is as headstrong as I was and more than a handful. She’s almost twenty and insists she’s an adult, but she acts more like a teenager.”

      Susannah brought out pictures of her children and showed them to Carolyn. Chrissie and Brian were very attractive, and so was Joe, Susannah’s husband, in a solid, appealing way. Although she’d never met him, Carolyn had a positive feeling about Joe—about all of Susannah’s family. She rarely admitted it, but she would’ve liked a husband and children of her own. It hadn’t happened. The divorce had devastated her, and she’d buried herself in her work in an effort to forget. Before she knew it, she was forty and then her father got ill.

      Still, most of the time she didn’t mind being alone. Better that than marriage to a man like her ex-husband, whose repeated infidelity had undermined the little confidence she’d had. In fact, she was shy and always had been. She’d learned to overcompensate in other areas and was an effective manager. Few would guess how difficult it was for her to communicate with a man socially.

      Susannah slipped the photos back inside her purse. When she glanced up, she seemed to study Carolyn, then said, “You look happy.”

      Her friend’s assessment surprised Carolyn. But Susannah was right. Only recently she’d found herself singing as she dressed for work. The sound of her own voice had caught her off guard and she’d

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