A New Foundation Rochelle Alers (read aloud .txt) 📖

wraparound porch. “If you were shocked when you first saw Bainbridge House, I know I speak for the others when I say we were also stunned by it.”

“I’m glad you decided to take the lead when you said you would supervise the restoration, because if you hadn’t, then I don’t think Joaquin and Tariq would’ve agreed to join you.”

“You underestimate them, Mom. I believe given the option of working for someone or one’s self, most would choose the latter.”

“Maybe for you, Tariq and Joaquin, but not Viola and Patrick.”

“Patrick is involved, Mom. Don’t forget he’s overseeing the project’s fiscal component. And I’d rather have him signing checks than a stranger.”

Minute lines fanned out around Elise’s eyes when she smiled. “You’re right about that. Patrick is more nitpicky than Conrad ever was when it comes to money.”

Taylor had to agree with his mother. His father had a sixth sense when it came to investing his clients’ money, but it was Patrick’s gift of total recall that proved invaluable to the company’s ongoing profitability.

“That’s four out of five, Taylor. I need you to convince Viola to join the rest of the family.”

“You know if you tell Viola to go left, then she’ll go right. Although she’s always talked about running her own kitchen, I feel she’ll come around even before we open as a hotel and wedding venue.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Taylor wanted to tell his mother he knew he was right. Within days of Viola graduating culinary school, her future plans included opening her own restaurant. Every once in a while she would bring up the topic, and whenever Conrad offered to give her the start-up capital, her comeback was always she needed to be more experienced.

There was a swollen silence before Taylor asked his mother a question that had been nagging at him for months. “Are you selling this house and taking an extended cruise so you won’t be reminded of Dad?”

Elise closed her eyes, and when she opened them they were shimmering with unshed tears. “It doesn’t matter where I go because I’ll never be able to forget Conrad. I knew he was special the first time he bumped into me at Princeton and spilled coffee on the front of my sweater. I yelled at him for not looking where he was going. He calmly told me he was sorry and would buy me another sweater. I told him I didn’t want another sweater, and there was no way I could go to class with brown stains on my white sweater and smelling like coffee.”

“Did you skip class?”

“No. Conrad took off his sweater and gave it to me. He stood there in just an undershirt. He told me to take off my sweater and he would have it cleaned. I told him there was no way I was going strip in front of him. The impasse ended when I walked behind a tree and exchanged my sweater for his, because all I had on was a bra. I gave him my off-campus address, and a week later he showed up with a box from Bloomingdale’s with a cashmere twinset in a beautiful shade of cobalt blue. When I told him I couldn’t accept something that expensive because I didn’t know him, he claimed if I allowed him to take me out to dinner, then we could get to know each other.”

Taylor laughed softly. “It looks as if Dad knew what to do and say to get his woman.”

Elise’s laughter joined his. “That he did. We set up a date for dinner, and when he picked me up in his dinged-up two-seater sports car I was wearing the twinset with a strand of my grandmother’s pearls. To say I was impressed is an understatement. Not only was I, a sophomore, going out with a senior, but I was totally unaware that he’d been born into wealth.”

“When did you find that out?”

“The day he proposed marriage. By that time, I was so much in love with him that I couldn’t say no even if I’d felt I was too young to marry. My father, who was a judge, married us, and we had a small reception on the patio with relatives and a few of my sorority sisters in attendance. He’d invited his aunt, but she’d declined because she had come down with pneumonia and her doctor had recommended she remain at home. We delayed going on a honeymoon until she recovered, but unfortunately she never did. Conrad honored her wishes to have her cremated, and four months after our wedding we were finally able to take our delayed honeymoon to Hawaii. We were living with my parents because we were waiting for this house to be renovated. Conrad had bought it below market value because it been abandoned for years.

“Meanwhile, I’d gone back to school to get a graduate degree in education. I’d just begun teaching when I discovered I was pregnant. I knew something was wrong because I kept cramping. I left school early and called my doctor to let him know I was coming in. I’d just walked in when I began hemorrhaging. I don’t remember anything after that, but hours later when I woke up in the hospital was told that I’d lost my baby, and because they couldn’t stop the bleeding I’d undergone a hysterectomy.”

Elise sucked in a breath, holding it until she finally let it out. “I went into a depression because I realized I would never give Conrad children. When I told him this, he said we could always adopt. It was when I spoke to my former college roommate who’d become a social worker that she convinced me to become a foster parent, because the adoption process was a lengthy one.” She smiled. “That’s when I got you.”

Taylor’s smile matched Elise’s. “You got me, and then you couldn’t stop until you filled every bedroom in this house.”

“That’s because you were the sweetest little boy any mother could wish for. Then I rolled the dice