Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,17

turn.”

“He just acted like himself. You were the ones that let yourselves be embarrassed by it.”

“Oh? How about when we were in grade school and he took on the whole Bouquet Belles system so that he could be a Garden Mother?”

“I think that’s very sweet.”

“And after our marriage ceremony, when he whipped a tin cup out of his jacket and asked everyone going through the receiving line for their spare change because the wedding had left him broke?”

“All in good fun.”

“Fun? Maybe, but fun for who? Certainly not for me.” Oops, she’d made it about her again. She cleared her throat and amended, “Certainly not for my sisters. Oh, and speaking of sisters, how about a couple years ago, when he purposely defied and disgraced Sadie by marching with the twirling tots in the Memorial Day Parade dressed as a cross between Colonel Sanders and a patriotic clown?”

“Okay, your dad is a loon. We all know that.” He threw up his hands, but his grin never faltered. “You’d think that fact would make it all the easier for you to go with this, Hannah.”

“Well, it doesn’t.” She twisted her hands together and walked to the sliding-glass door to look out over her meticulously trimmed lawn. “My oldest sister is over forty and runs around town dressed like a safari guide. She spends Sundays digging in her ‘garden,’ which is nothing but the median strip of the parking lot behind her plant shop.”

“Leave April alone. She’s doing all right.”

“And…my other sister…” It was petty and childish not to say Sadie’s name aloud. And Hannah didn’t care. “The other one runs the cemetery—and likes it!”

“My nana Bartlett used to say, ‘God loves a cheerful worker.’”

“Of course she did, because she was saying it to the dozens of servants who would rather have had a living wage than a pittance and some words to live by.” Hannah hated dragging his family into this. Wasn’t hers bad enough? She sighed hard, and clenched her teeth. “Anyway, my point is that it’s all well and good for my sisters to have the town chuckling over their antics, but it’s not for me.”

“Why not?”

She lifted her hand and lamented, “Because I’m supposed to be the normal one.”

“Yeah, so? Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun? I don’t want to have fun.”

Wait. Had she really said that? Everybody wanted to have fun.

And if, when they had their fun, they spread that fun around a little, what was so wrong with that? That was her daddy talking, of course. Easy for him to say. Despite his shortcomings, Moonie Shelnutt never had reason to doubt that he was loved and wanted.

Hannah shook her head. “No. No, I can’t allow it. When Sadie calls, I will tell her just how I feel and warn her that I won’t write so much as an instant message to her until I have her guarantee that she will never share another of my personal anecdotes with anyone.”

“Anecdotes?”

“It’s a word,” she snapped.

“I know.” He came up behind her and nuzzled the back of her ear. “A writer’s word.”

Writer. Her? The thought sent a warm shimmer through her entire body. Hannah Bartlett, wife, mother, writer.

R-r-r-r-ring. The phone yanked her back to reality.

Payt gave her an innocent nudge. “You better get that.”

“Me?” She bristled. “Why not you?”

“Because I need to go check on the kids, and mostly because it’s your future calling.” He dropped a kiss on her temple, then turned to go. “Don’t be afraid to answer it.”

Her future? Her future didn’t frighten her one bit. It was her past that always seemed to trip her up. How could Payt have lived with her so many years and still not know that?

“Hey! You play nice with your sister!” Payt’s voice carried from the hallway through the empty living room.

R-r-r-r-ring.

Hannah took a step toward the children’s rooms, away from the phone. “Is Sam playing too rough with Tessa?”

“Nope. I was talking to you, Hannah!”

“Very funny.” She spun around, and before she had the chance to chicken out, grabbed the phone.

“Don’t bite my head off.” Sadie spoke first. “Just take a moment and remember your verse.”

“‘Peace. Be strong,’” she and Sadie repeated it together.

When Hannah, Sadie and April were little, their father had chosen a Bible verse for each of them. He probably had intended them as inspirations, but when a kid grows up having the sound-bite version of that verse thrown at them in every circumstance, the inspiration aspect starts to fade.

Hannah’s verse was from Daniel, which she