Pages of the Past (Bellingwood Book 9) by Diane Greenwood Muir Page B

do is redirect it so that he's in the middle rather than on the outside."
    She patted his right pectoral muscle and winked at him. "If I have trouble explaining that to him, I'll send the boy in to learn from the master."
    "I ain't no master. I had enough trouble getting one girl to pay attention to me."
    "Oh baby, I was paying attention."
    "Maybe I wasn't talking about you."
    Polly chuckled. He was so much fun. She started to respond when Rebecca and Kayla came into the room. "Are you ready?" she asked, checking the time on her phone. Stephanie was probably already downstairs.
    "I have everything and Rebecca said she'd bring me anything else I forgot."
    "Then let's go downstairs and see if your sister is here. Rebecca, if you want to head back to your room, I'll be in before I go to bed."
    "Okay, but I'm wide awake."
    "What does that mean?"
    "I don't know."
    "I've got this," Henry said.
    "Okay. I'll be back."
    The dogs were confused with the whole situation, especially when Polly headed for the back door. As Kayla and Polly headed down the steps, the two animals stood at the top, hoping to be called down. Polly looked up and shook her head just before closing the door on them.
    She opened the back door and saw a car in the driveway. Kayla ran over to the passenger seat and got in. Polly pushed the door shut and made a motion for her to turn the window down.
    Stephanie leaned across her sister. "Thank you again for taking care of her tonight. I'm sorry we woke you up."
    "Please don't worry about it," Polly said, resting her hand on the open window. "I hope you'll spend more time with Rebecca, Kayla."
    "I will."
    "Did you tell her thank you?" Stephanie asked her sister.
    Kayla looked up. Her eyes were still red-rimmed from crying, but she had finally relaxed. "Thank you. I'm sorry for waking everybody up."
    "It's no problem. I'm glad this worked out and I hope you sleep well tonight." She backed away from the car and pulled her robe around herself while she waved at the car backing out of the driveway. Polly gave a quick shiver as she ran back inside and up the steps.
    The dogs weren't sitting at the top of the stairs when she got there and she soon discovered why. They were sitting beside Henry, Jessie and Rebecca at the dining room table.
    "We thought we should have snacks since everyone was up," Henry said. "Join us."
    "I'm sorry we woke you, Jessie," Polly said.
    "It's okay. I had to go to the bathroom anyway." She took a bite of a brownie. "This is good. I'm going to have to work so hard to lose weight after the baby comes."
    Rebecca was slowly nibbling at her brownie when Polly sat down beside her.
    "You have five more minutes, little girlfriend," Polly said. "Then it's time for all of us to go back to bed."
    "She was really scared," Rebecca said.
    "Yes, she was and you did exactly the right thing by coming to get me. You were a good friend to her tonight."
    "Will she come back sometime?"
    "For after school stuff, I hope you invite her to come any time you'd like, but for overnight stays, it might be a while before she wants to try that again. Just keep being her friend. It will get easier for her. Remember how weird it was when you moved in here?"
    "I tried to tell her that my room wasn't always like this. She didn't believe me. She told me that her place was a dump and I said that I didn't care because she was my friend."
    Polly glanced at Henry. She knew she couldn't fix everybody, but there had to be something she could do about that.
    "Just keep telling her that she's your friend. It will get better."
     
    ~~~
     
    Polly was in her office the next morning when she looked up to see Lydia walk in the front door. It was quite obvious that she'd been crying, so Polly jumped up and out of her chair and met her friend outside the office.
    "Lydia, what's going on?"
    "I shouldn't be here, but I need to talk to someone."
    "Do you want to go upstairs?"
    "Could we?" The poor woman looked like she could fall apart at any