Our Now and Forever(29)

Hattie waved his words away. “I’ll hear nothing of the sort. That ring is meant to be worn, not sit in a box forever. Besides,” she added, “I can’t take it with me.”

From what little time he’d spent with Hattie Silvester, Caleb surmised she was as healthy as he was. But not all ailments were obvious. “Are you planning on meeting your maker sometime soon?” he asked.

Shaking her head, she said, “My luck, I’ll still be kicking around this old place twenty years from now. That doesn’t change the fact that Snow deserves this ring.”

The delicate piece continued to sparkle as he held it closer to the window. “What do you want for it?”

“It’s worth about five thousand,” Hattie said, shrugging as she answered. “Give me whatever you can afford.”

Caleb could afford twice that much. “How do you feel about monthly payments?” He’d simply pay the small amount for the first month or two, then hand over a large check before he and Snow left for home.

“Like I said, pay me what you can afford.” The older woman placed several small satchels back in the long jewelry box and latched the intricately decorated lid in place. “Say, do you know anything about the newspaper business?”

Considering his father owned three of them and he’d interned at each, the answer was obvious. But again, he didn’t know what story Snow wanted him to tell. This lying business was more trouble than it was worth. Which was why he’d never made a habit of it.

“I know a little, I guess,” Caleb said, deciding that understatement was better than a lie.

“Good.” Hattie set the jewelry box on the desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Be at this address at nine tomorrow morning.”

Caleb took the note and read 121 Second Avenue North. “What is this?” he asked.

“You want a job or not?” she asked.

He’d told Snow he’d get a job, and working for a newspaper was better than slinging a hammer, but Caleb didn’t know what Hattie expected him to do. Journalism was not his arena, but the paper could be hiring a delivery boy for all he knew.

“I appreciate your help, but I don’t know what you’re offering. And you don’t even know if I’m qualified.”

She once again waved his words away. “You’ll be fine. Now we have more work to do,” she said, charging out of the small sitting room.

“Excuse me?” Caleb said, following after her.

“It isn’t often I have a little muscle around here,” she said over her shoulder. “Keep up and we’ll earn you the first installment on that ring before the day is out.”





Chapter 9




“Mama, if you’ll just listen—”

“Don’t you Mama me, young lady. Do you know what you put your family through? We were worried sick.” Snow had hoped that after eighteen months Roberta Cameron would be too happy to hear from her to launch into a full-on scolding.

Snow had hoped wrong.

“Running away from a good man like that. Leaving us behind to look like fools, trying to make excuses for our daughter’s rash behavior. I know I taught you better than that. I have never been so humiliated in my life.”

No concern over what had driven Snow to her “rash behavior,” as Mama called it. No sympathy or compassion for the daughter who’d been distraught enough to stay in hiding for more than a year. None of that maternal stuff for Snow’s mother.

“I shouldn’t have taken off like that,” Snow said, “but I had a good reason. Aren’t you at all interested in why I left?”

“Do you know that boy has called me every month like clockwork?” Roberta asked. “I could mark it on my calendar and know exactly when I’d hear from him. But I never knew if or when I’d hear from my daughter.”

Pounding her head on the wall behind her, Snow said, “I sent messages, Mama. I even sent presents on holidays and birthdays. You knew I was okay the whole time.”

“As if a pretty teacup would make up for not having you here.” That teacup was Wedgwood, for Pete’s sake. “If you wanted to leave that boy, though heaven only knows what woman in her right mind would, you could have come here.”

“I needed to go somewhere that Caleb couldn’t find me,” she said. “We aren’t right for each other, Mama. Getting married was a mistake, and I couldn’t spend one more minute in that house.”

Snow had hit her limit of toxic hatred from her in-laws, both back at the time and now.

“Marriage isn’t an easy thing, Snow. You had to know that.”