LITMIR.BIZ

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wicker basket, she had tucked all sorts of the chocolate specialties that had made Sweet Stuff one of the most popular stores on Welles Avenue, as well as the very center of Charlene’s lifelong dream to own a candy store.

      Double-dipped, dark-chocolate-covered pretzels sprinkled heavily with pink jimmies, chocolate-raspberry fudge, chocolate-dipped strawberries and milk-chocolate-covered cherries were favorites she included in all the gift-basket orders she received for new mothers of baby girls, and this basket was no exception.

      Although this basket had not been ordered at all. It was going to be a surprise gift from Charlene to Melanie Arbor, a member of her congregation whose adoption of two-year-old Kelsey had been finalized this morning.

      When Charlene heard the shop door open, she stepped away from the worktable in the rear of the shop, walked into the main room and grinned as she navigated around one of the glass display cases filled with chocolates. “Aunt Dorothy! This is a surprise. I thought you were going on a bus trip today.”

      “I did. Just got back. I thought you were supposed to close at five o’clock. It’s nearly six. You probably haven’t had dinner yet, either, and you have a long ride home,” she admonished gently as she stopped in front of the hutch that displayed a wide variety of vintage-era candy. “Makes a girl worry, you know.”

      Charlene looked at her aunt, a girlish eighty-one-year-old spinster, and pouted. “I thought we had an agreement. You weren’t going to worry about me commuting to Welleswood, and I wasn’t going to worry about you living all alone,” she teased. Although her aunt’s dark gray hair was neatly permed and she wore her trademark scent, Tabu, Charlene did notice that the elephant pin on the collar of her aunt’s coat had lost several rhinestones. There was also a dark stain on one of her sleeves, which was unusual, since her aunt was usually very fastidious about her appearance.

      Aunt Dorothy’s hazel eyes twinkled behind her glasses, but since the lenses were a bit smudged, it was questionable how much good the glasses did to improve her vision. “You’ll get no argument from me there. As a matter of fact, I was hoping you were still here. Annie Parker was on the trip. You remember Annie, don’t you? We worked together at the factory. Started the same day and retired the same day, as a matter of fact.”

      “Sure I do. She lives at the Towers, doesn’t she?” Charlene asked, referring to the senior-citizen’s high-rise just down the avenue at the other end of town.

      Aunt Dorothy nodded and started to help Charlene straighten the display of old-fashioned candy and gum, all in total disorder thanks to the numerous children who had stopped in after school today. “She had to give up the family home after Philip died a few years back. But to get to my point, she’s feeling a bit low. Today’s her daughter’s birthday. Jill would have been fifty-five, if she hadn’t been killed in that awful car accident two years ago. I would have forgotten all about it if I hadn’t been on the trip with Annie today. I feel terrible about forgetting. I should have done something extra nice for Annie to make today easier for her.”

      Charlene cocked her head. “Something extra nice?”

      “Maybe a gift basket. Just a little one. I know it’s late and you need to be getting home and you don’t really have any baskets made up because you like to personalize each one, but—”

      “I’ve got one. I mean, I just finished making up a gift basket. You can take that one.”

      Aunt Dorothy’s eyes lit with surprise. “I can? You wouldn’t mind?”

      “Wait right here,” Charlene instructed. Within moments, she returned with the gift basket she’d made for Melanie, along with a white shopping bag. “How’s this?” she asked, and held the basket up for her aunt’s approval.

      “It’s perfect, of course, but didn’t you make that up for someone else?”

      “I was going to surprise Melanie Arbor on my way home, but I have time to make another. It’s Daniel’s bowling night. He won’t be home until late,” Charlene explained. She was more relieved than disappointed to have time for herself on her husband’s night out. Whether she spent that time at home or here in the shop mattered little. She set the gift basket into the shopping bag, handed it over and wrapped her hands around her aunt’s. “Here. My treat. Take this to Annie and tell her my thoughts and prayers are with her today, too.”

      When Aunt Dorothy looked up, her eyes were moist with tears. “Thank you, Charlene. You might not be much of a businesswoman, since you wind up giving away almost as much candy as you sell, but you are a very precious woman. You know that, don’t you?”

      Charlene swallowed hard and smiled. “It’s a family tradition. Makes a girl worry, you know, about being as good as her role model.”

      Chuckling, Aunt Dorothy tiptoed up a bit to kiss Charlene’s cheek. “You’re twice as good as I am, which you’d know for sure if you ever found out some of my secrets. Which I’m hoping you won’t,” she teased. “I’m heading across the street to pick up some supper for me and Annie. Do you want me to get something for you to eat on the ride home?”

      “Thanks, but I have half a sandwich left over from lunch. I can drive you to Annie’s if you like,” she offered.

      “You need to get yourself home. Somebody’s bound to be at The Diner who can drive me. If not, I’ll call a cab,” her aunt insisted. “I’ll stop by and see you tomorrow. I’ll get up early and make some of those caramel brownies you like so much,” she added before heading to the door.

      Charlene followed her aunt, locked up behind her and watched the elderly woman cross the street. Aunt Dorothy did not seem to have her usual bounce to her step, but after such a long day, neither did Charlene. She waited until her aunt had gone into The Diner—a family-friendly restaurant that had anchored the Welleswood business district for years—before heading back to the workroom again.

      An hour later, with her heart still glowing from her visit with the Arbors, Charlene headed toward home. When she hit the highway, she polished off the half sandwich left from lunch and chased it down with a diet soft drink. Dinner on the run was a frequent occurrence in her life now, but that, too, was a blessing of sorts. She did not manage to get home for dinner with Daniel very often these days. Her hour-long commute each way solved the problem of sitting at the dinner table each night in silence with the man she had married forty-one years ago.

      Once their two children had grown up and left home, the awkward quiet between them was like an uninvited guest, at first. Now the silence was an invisible, integral part of their relationship, a testament to the struggle of maintaining a marriage that neither of them seemed to know how to revive.

      Dwelling on the sorry state of her marriage, however, was not how Charlene wanted to spend the rest of her drive home. Using her hands-free cell phone, she called her son, Greg, a physical therapist living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Margot. When he did not answer, Charlene left a message and tried reaching her daughter, Bonnie, now a high-school guidance counselor who had moved to New York City straight from college to share an apartment with several friends who also had a love for the faster-paced city life. No answer at Bonnie’s, either, so Charlene left a message.

      She often played telephone tag with the children, and it seemed that this, too, was another sign that the pattern of her life had changed. After being a full-time homemaker and stay-at-home mother, she found owning and operating her business just as demanding, but in different ways. Her mothering days might be well behind her now, but she was blessed to have the kind of store where she could channel her instinct to nurture to her customers.

      Nothing, however, seemed to ease the yearning in her heart for the happy marriage she had once shared with Daniel.

      For the better part of an hour, she concentrated on the heavy traffic and set her worries aside. When she finally pulled off the highway onto Magnolia Road, she hesitated for a moment, then called Daniel to let him know she was just fifteen minutes from home. To her surprise, he didn’t answer, so she left him a message, too, and then remembered that he was bowling with friends this evening.

      A

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