Page 250 - My FlipBook

L IS A J. L A W R E N C E

“I remember moving in,” she said. “An empty room like
this. We sat on the floor to eat. Mom was…mad about some-
thing.” She pictured Diana’s face, usually calm but pinched in
irritation as she talked to Roger.
“I gave you donuts,” Roger said. “We went through a
Tim Hortons drive-through on the way over, so you didn’t
want your sandwiches and vegetables.” He chuckled at the
memory. “She had packed a lunch for nothing.”

Greta smiled at the thought of Diana coaxing them to
take a few bites of real food. “Yes, she did try to explain things
like vitamins and fiber to us, didn’t she?” Then she saw her
mother tucking her and Ash into sleeping bags at night, blan-
kets spread beneath them, sorting through boxes with Roger
by the light of a floor lamp.
“I remember,” Greta said. Before Mother. Before Family. ADVANCE READING COPY

Some mundane memory of her mom getting annoyed with
Roger. She remembered it. Roger either didn’t hear her or
understood that she wouldn’t want to explain. He stood next
to her at the window, smiling at the memory in his own head.
Greta could see it all again. Her, Ash and Roger sitting
on the floor, trying to eat Chinese food with chopsticks,
not knowing which box held the forks. She could see them
slouched on the sofa watching Quiz Kings, snowflakes falling
outside the window. She saw them. They argued about whose

turn it was to clean the bathroom. They made scrambled
eggs for each other. They sat on the back porch on summer
days, sticky hot, and couldn’t imagine a season when snow
would fall again.

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