Tomorrow River by Lesley Kagen Page B

He tried, too. To keep the disappointment off his face. But it’s so important to him what his father and brother think and his wife just made that so bad for him. Grampa Gus and Uncle Blackie will be making dumb jokes for the rest of the year about that Easter dinner, that’s what I thought to myself, which is probably the same thing my father was thinking. Then Mama asked, “May I go out to the garden and do some planting now?” The garden is her haven the way the fort is Woody’s and mine.
    Papa graciously replied, “Yes, you may.” Then he pushed his chair back from the dining table and I remember so clearly that grating sound it made. Could feel it in my chest. “I’m leaving now to join the rest of my family at the restaurant. Jane Woodrow, you come with me. Shenandoah, stay here with your mother.” Papa nodded at me across the table. He was telling me to follow Mama out to the garden because he adores her so much that he couldn’t stand not knowing what his true love was doing every minute, every second of the day.
    I swung on the gate and Mama dropped down onto her knees and began tending to all the new life rising up once we got out there. It was a lovely afternoon. The lilies were perfuming the air something fierce. Roses were budding in all their pink glory. I could hardly breathe for the scent.
    Her head down close to the earth, Mama asked, “Would . . . would you and your sister like to go away with me?”
    “What?” I about split a gut. “Papa’s right. You really are getting more addled by the minute! What are you thinking? You know he can’t leave on a trip right now. He’s in the middle of the Merriweather trial.”
    That’s when my mother’s whole body went droopy, like she desperately needed to be watered.
    So maybe that’s what she did. No longer able to ignore her yearning for travel, she snuck off. Maybe to Italy. She had been learning to speak the language with that Berlitz record.
    But if that is the case, if she is in Italy, why hasn’t she sent us a “Wish You Were Here” postcard?
    Because she doesn’t. Not me anyway.
    Even though she went back to her planting that Easter afternoon, like the whole traveling idea had never come up, I saw her tears showering down on those seedlings.
    That’s why her goneness is probably all my fault. If only I’d knelt down next to her in the garden that day and said, “Go away with you? Well, gosh, we can’t right now, but I’m sure we could real soon. Right after Papa’s trial is over. Let’s plan on that.”
    If only .
    You got to admit, standing alone those words are pretty awful, but married together like that, they must be two of the saddest in the English language.

C hapter Eight
    T hen again, there is what happened to Mildred Fugate to take into consideration.
    Madame Fugate tells everybody that she was born in Paris, but we all know it’s not the one in France, but the one up near Lees-burg. Guess she thinks it gives her a little more oo . . . la . . . la . She gives comportment and dancing lessons to the girls in town in a room she’s got off Main Street. (When she comes back home, I am going to surprise Mama and enroll her in one of Madame’s manner classes so she can learn her proper place in the order of things because Gramma Ruth Love is right, this is something my mother really needs to improve on.)
    The reason Madame comes to mind in regards to finding Mama is that teacher took a nasty spill on a patch of ice during that bad winter we had a few years ago and ended up with her left leg broke in three places and her head bounced off the sidewalk and landed right into unconsciousness. Dancing in a tutu is a little too froufrou for a girl of my temperament, but I was there, waiting to walk Woody home after her ballerina class. I ran to Doc Keller’s office, stuck my head in, and shouted, “Come quick. Madame has either fainted or died.” When he got to where she was sprawled out, Doc wiggled his smelling salts under