Hand-Me-Down Love by Jennifer Ransom Page A

They go so fast, I can’t keep them in stock.”
    Mrs. Answorth was
disappointed. “I really need to get her something and that’s what
I had in mind.”
    “ Why don’t I
show you some other things we have here she might like,” Marla
said, leading Mrs. Answorth to the vintage side of the shop. “I’ll
put you at the top of the list and when the dough bowls come in, I’ll
call you. But we can find her something else for now.”
    Dammit! Marla was
going to have to deal with Mrs. Answorth seeing Sean. She would have
to talk to Sean. While these thoughts were running around in her
mind, she led the old woman to the vintage side. Mrs. Answorth looked
around with Marla at her side explaining the history of various
objects, but she didn’t buy anything. “Let me know when those
bowls come in,” she said as she left the store.
    Relieved she was
gone, Marla walked to the back and went out the door. Sean was
sitting in a chair rubbing Lucy with his foot.
    “ That old biddy is
gonna be trouble,” Marla said. “She saw you.”
    “ I know,” he
said.
    “ We’ve got to
figure this out,” Marla said.
    “ Let’s talk
about it tonight,” Sean said. “We’ve got a lot to finish up
here today. I’m supposed to go to Mobile with Derrick to pick up
that furniture.”
    “ Okay,” Marla
said. She walked over to Sean and leaned down and kissed him. He
kissed her back. “Don’t worry so much,” he said.
    Later that night,
when they were finally in bed, Sean said, “I know we’ve got to
talk about Mrs. Answorth, but I need to talk about something else
first.”
    “ Okay,” she
said. “Go ahead.”
    “ I realized today
that I’ve got to deal with the house. It’s just sitting over
there empty and I’ve got to deal with it. I can’t really afford
to keep paying for it when I’m not even living there.”
    “ What do you want
to do?” Marla asked. She had been checking on the house
periodically since Meredith’s death. She hated going inside, but
she knew someone needed to look after it, make sure water lines
hadn’t burst or the power went out. She had also been starting
Meredith’s car every time she went over, just to keep it going.
    “ I think I need to
go over and figure out what to do with everything. Can you come with
me?”
    “ Of course,” she
said and put her arm on his reassuringly. “Of course I’ll help
you with it.”
    “ Thanks,” he
said. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
    They slept that
night without making love.

Chapter
Twelve

    “ Are you ready?”
Marla said to Sean, who sat in the passenger seat of her car. They
were parked in the driveway of his house.
    “ No,” he said.
“But it’s got to be done.”
    They got out of the
car and walked to the kitchen door. Marla used her key to unlock the
door and opened it. She went in and Sean followed. The kitchen was
clean but felt hollow and empty. There was no life there. Sean walked
into the room and walked to the stove. That had been Meredith’s
domain, the stove. He stood there staring down at it.
    Marla came up beside
him and put her hand on his arm.
    “ I still can’t
believe she’s gone,” he said. He turned to her and she took him
in her arms. They fell to the floor holding each other. Sean wept
loudly and unashamedly. So did Marla.
    “ Sean, I can take
care of things here for you if you can’t do it,” Marla said, his
head in her lap. “Really, I can do it.”
    Sean pulled himself
up. “No, I’ve got to figure this out. It’s not fair to put that
on you.” He got up and she followed him down the hall to the master
bedroom. He opened the closet door. “I don’t know what to do with
all of her clothes,” he said. “What should we do?”
    “ I think we should
put them in storage for now,” Marla said. “Figure that out later.
In fact, we can put everything in storage so we don’t have to
figure it out right now. Do you want to do that?”
    He turned to look at
her and her heart broke to see