Dust Eva Everson (story reading txt) 📖

Her brother nodded. “All right … Let’s go on out to Velma’s.”

Cindie started for the door, then turned. “And get a shower. You’re too cute to go around looking and smelling like the something the dog drug into the yard.”

She worried that Michelle wouldn’t recognize her. After all, she’d been gone for months. And while she thought of her baby every day of the world, she was smart enough to know the same wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—true for Michelle.

She talked to Westley often enough. Knew the day-in-day-out of their daughter’s life. Knew she was adjusting. That she wasn’t sleeping through the night, but that she had stopped crying for her mama in the daytime. He never said much about his little wifey … how she and Michelle might be getting along, but he didn’t sound strained over the relationship either. Whether that gave Cindie any comfort or grief, she couldn’t say. What he had done was assure her that she—Cindie—would always be Michelle’s mother. The one who had brought her into the world. The one she would always call Mommy.

“You got that right,” Cindie now said under her breath as she pulled her car into the wide and vacant space in front of the drugstore. She slid the gearshift to Park, then looked through the windshield stained with bug guts from her trip, to the flapping green- and white-striped awning over the store’s front door. Nostalgia washed over her, and she smiled at the arched lettering of the store’s name, painted across the width of one of the wide pane windows. The advertisements welcoming folks to come inside for an ice-cold Coca-Cola at the fountain … or to pick up a box of Goody’s headache powder in case the kids get too loud during summer vacation. Another showed the face of a beautiful woman, her eyes downcast, lids deeply shadowed in baby blue by Maybelline’s powder-twist invention. The poster startled her; the model looking so much like the young woman she’d seen on Westley’s front porch. The one who now raised her child. Held her. Fed her. Tucked her in at night. “Stop it,” she admonished herself and not for the first time either. She had a plan. One she had to stick with. Because if she didn’t, all would be lost. Not just for a couple of years. For a lifetime.

Cindie popped open the door and got out, made quick steps on weak legs to the store’s front doors. She jerked the right open wide and stepped through to see the old woman behind the cash register looking over the rim of her cat glasses and down her nose. Cindie stopped short. Had she spied her outside? Thought that she could persuade her to turn around and go back to Lettie Mae’s without Michelle?

“May I help you?” she asked.

Cindie shook her head. “Pharmacy,” she answered, then made her way to the back. Her stomach turned into knots and she wondered when—if ever—she’d feel like she was as good as someone else. Or better than. Knowing she’d settle for half as good.

Anxiety kicked at her. She was about to see Michelle again. What if her daughter cried? What if she ran from her? What if—

“There’s Mommy.” Westley’s voice cut through the cacophony of her thoughts a split second before she saw him standing at the end of the row, holding their daughter—a glorious sight of blond curls and large green eyes and rolls of baby fat that had thinned out considerably. The wide hem of her pink-and-white gingham dress lay draped over her father’s protective arm, the one that held her close—his face nestled against hers.

Hers against his.

Cindie stopped. “Baby girl,” she cooed.

Michelle squirmed for release and Westley gave it. Cindie squatted as her little one waddled toward her—half running, half walking … all smiles and giggles. The overhead light reflected joy in her eyes, a clear indication that Cindie had not bargained and lost. Cindie caught her as soon as she neared. Stood. Tightened her hold. Breathed in the baby shampoo and powdery goodness of her. The light scent of her father’s aftershave. She dipped her lips between her child’s shoulder and neck and kissed it over and over, repeating the same words again and again. “Baby girl … baby girl … Mommy missed you so much.”

“See,” Westley now said as he drew close. “I told you she would remember you.”

“Westley,” Cindie breathed out. “I missed her so much.” And you, she wanted to say, but stopped herself.

“She missed you, too.”

Cindie kissed her daughter again before adding, “Not too much, I hope. I couldn’t bear it if I thought she was miserable.”

“She’s not. I promise you, she’s not.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. “How’s it going up there?”

“It’s going. Job’s working out … school is good.” She tossed her laughter into the air. “I forgot how hard it can be, but it’s good.”

He rubbed their daughter’s back who turned to him before clinging again to her mother. “And your housing situation? Still good?”

“I have two roommates now … Karen works long hours downtown, goes out most evenings with her officemates. And then there’s Kyle.”

Westley’s brow shot upward. “Karen and Kyle?”

Cindie smiled as she nodded. “Kyle is Karen’s twin brother … He’s hardly ever home, either, which is fine by us as long as he pays his third of the rent. He’s a year ahead at DeKalb. Same program.” She grinned, loving the way talking about school—about higher education—made her feel. “Oh and one of the girls I work with has been helping me with Algebra I, which is great, but I’m already dreading next term’s calculus with Professor Thacker. I met him the other day and both Professor Miller and Kyle say he can be a real bear in class.”

Westley pulled his hands from the pockets. Crossed his arms. “I thought you said the apartment was a two bedroom …”

“It is,” she said, shifting Michelle