Down by the River by Lin Stepp Page A

challenge! What do you plan to do with all those piles of craft items, some not even half finished, and all the boxes of craft supplies that have filled up that apartment to the gills for ages? I hope you’ll finally trash that stuff.”
    A snigger ran around the table. This was an old joke.
    Grace had done crafts of one kind or another since she had first married. Well, actually, she’d even done crafts before that. She possessed a creative streak and liked to make things with her hands. Over the years, she’d taken a multitude of different kinds of arts and craft classes around the Nashville area. Charles and the kids had viewed Grace’s crafting as a curse that kept one household area or the other constantly covered with assorted messy projects on old newspapers. As the children grew up and left home, Grace had taken over the garage apartment as her work and storage area. Okay, to be truthful—mostly as her storage area. She’d meant to clean out the place for years now. But had never gotten around to it.
    Mike spoke up. “News flash, Mom. I am not going to help clean out and carry off all that craft stuff. So don’t even think about asking me.”
    Ken echoed Mike’s sentiments.
    Grace’s mouth tightened. “I haven’t asked anyone to help me. I’ll take care of it by myself.”
    Margaret giggled. “You may have to rent an entire moving van just to carry off all that junk.”
    Again, Grace felt annoyed with her children. They’d never valued the crafts she had made or the skills she’d learned in doing them. Charles hadn’t been much better.
    Her anger flared. “I’ll have you know there is some very nice work packed away in that garage. It’s not junk.”
    Barbara gave her a kind but patronizing look. “Yes, but people don’t decorate with craft items in their houses anymore, Mother Grace. Things have changed.”
    Grace thought about the décor of the Oakley then—colorful, old-fashioned, full of bric-a-brac and handcrafted items. She decided not to tell her children what the Oakley looked like just yet.
    Sighing, Grace braced herself for another barrage of criticisms. She could hear the family tuning up to talk about the waste of their father’s hard-earned money on a hair-brained scheme like this. This was all going much worse than she’d even imagined.
    Actually, the arguing might have continued into the night if the grandchildren hadn’t started to tire. Then everyone began to leave to take the children home to bed. It had grown late. All but Grace worked the next day, as well—even Margaret. She was doing a short teaching internship in the music department at a nearby college.
    The good-byes were tense and strained as Grace saw her family off.
    Just as Grace thought she could begin to let down, Charles’s mother Jane showed up. She’d been to a concert pianist performance, but had stopped by on her way home to wish Margaret a happy birthday. Of course, Margaret immediately told her about Grace’s buying the bed-and-breakfast, and then Jane lit in on Grace in full force.
    â€œI can’t believe you’ve made such a foolish decision, Grace. I always told Charles that marrying a girl with small town roots and from so little money was a mistake. But you did well, being a good wife to Charles, all in all, and you kept a nice home. I can’t say you ever disgraced us until now—although there were times I’d like to have seen you have more polish. And I always wished you’d become accomplished at something along the way, rather than flitting about in all those silly crafting classes over the years. I used to dread the holidays—wondering what new homemade item I’d have to unwrap and pretend to like.”
    Grace winced. It was no secret that Charles’s mother had never liked her. Jane had been internationally famous, after all, as a concert pianist