Hand-Me-Down Love
Authors: Jennifer Ransom
Hand-Me-Down
Love
By Jennifer Ransom
Copyright
©
2013 by Jennifer Ransom
Cover art by Design
Dept.
All rights reserved.
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This
is a work of fiction. References to actual people, places, and events
are used to lend authenticity to the novel and are used fictitiously.
All characters, dialog, and events are from the author's imagination
and are not real. Any resemblances to real people, places, events, or
dialog are coincidental.
This
book may not be copied, scanned, or reproduced in any way without
permission from the author.
Jennifer Ransom is the author of
Love
Weaver
and
Come
Down In Time.
To
my son, Ethan, a creative writer who has inspired me as a mother and
a writer.
Chapter
One
Marla would never
forget the day her sister told her she was sick. She had been out in
the courtyard of her antiques shop when she heard the buzzer, which
meant someone had come in the front door. She walked through the
back door and into the desk area of the shop. Meredith was standing
there with a stricken look on her face.
“
What’s wrong?”
Marla asked.
Meredith
started crying. Marla walked to her sister and put her arm around
her. “What is it, Merrie?” She asked. “What’s going on?”
Meredith pulled
away from her sister then. She looked at her with tears in her eyes.
“
I just got a
call from the doctor. It’s serious.”
Panic moved
through Marla. “What?” she said.
“
I’ve got a
brain tumor,” Meredith said, her voice breaking. “I’ll have to
go in next week to see if I can have surgery.”
Marla pulled
Meredith to her. “No,” was all she said. “No.”
Marla led
Meredith to the chair on the opposite side of the desk and sat her
down in it. “Could you bring me something to drink? I’m parched,”
Meredith said.
“
I’ll be
right back with some tea,” Marla said as she walked across the shop
to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Marla returned to Meredith, who
had her head in her hands as she leaned on the desk. Marla put the
steaming teacup in front of her.
“
Tell me what
the doctor said,” she said to her sister. “Tell me everything.”
“
You know
I’ve been having those terrible headaches for a while. I’ve been
taking medicine for them, but it hasn’t really helped. Then my
vision got blurry in my right eye.”
“
I knew about the
headaches,” Marla said, “but not the blurry vision.”
“
I know,”
Meredith said. “I was playing it down, thinking it was an eye
infection or something. So, I was at Dr. Woodson’s for a regular
visit last week,” she said. “Nothing going on. I just wanted a
check-up since we’re thinking about having a baby soon. I wasn’t
expecting anything unusual at all.”
“
So, Dr.
Woodson was doing his thing, checking in my mouth while I said
‘Ahhh.’ All that stuff. And he asked me about my headaches and I
told him about the blurry vision.”
Meredith
stopped talking and took a sip of tea.
“
He got
concerned then and sent me to a neurologist right away. Dr. Nelson
ordered a CAT scan of my brain. And now, I have brain cancer.”
“
I’m sure
it’s treatable,” Marla said hopefully. “There are treatments,
right?”
“
Yes,”
Meredith said. “There are treatments and I’m going to have every
one of them, including the newest ones. I’m going to fight as hard
as I can to beat this.”
Marla was in a
state of shock. “What does Sean say?” she asked.
“
He doesn’t
know about it yet,” Meredith said. “I didn’t want to worry him
or you until there was a reason to. I dread telling him.”
The sisters sat
for a few minutes without talking, drinking their tea. Meredith’s
hand shook as she held her teacup up to her lips.
“
I know
you’re going to beat this,” Marla finally said. “I know you
will. You’ve always been strong. Remember when you had meningitis?
You beat that, and you’re going to beat this too.” Marla sounded
more hopeful than she felt. Brain tumor was a scary word.
Meredith put
her teacup on the desk and stood up from the chair. “I’ve got to
get going now. Sean will be home soon and I’m going to have to tell
him.”
Marla came
around from her side of the desk and hooked Meredith’s arm through
hers.
“
I’ve got a
favor to ask you,” Meredith said.
“
Anything,”
Marla said. “Anything at all.”
“
This is a
lot to ask. I know that. Will you tell Mom and Dad for me? I don’t
think I can do it without breaking down. I know I should be the one
to tell them. But it seems too hard to do right now.”
“
I
understand,” Marla said. “I’ll tell them.”
Marla stood in
the open door and noticed for the first time that day that it was
cloudy. She watched Meredith walk down the sidewalk and get into her
car which was parked a few spaces down from the front of the shop.
She watched her sister back out of the parking space and drive away.
When she could no longer see her car, she shut the door and slid to
the floor, where she began to cry. Her big sister was sick, and Marla
couldn’t do anything about it.
A few minutes
later, someone began to push on the door Marla was leaning against.
Marla picked herself up from the floor and stepped back. It was Jada,
Marla’s assistant manager.
“
Are you
okay?” Jada asked.
“
Yeah,”
Marla said, not wanting to talk about Meredith yet. “I’m okay.
It’s just been a rough day and I was taking a break.”
“
Okay,”
Jada said uncertainly. It was not a normal thing for Marla to be
sitting on the floor against the front door. But Jada respected her
privacy.
“
Derrick and
I just got back from that estate sale in Fairhope. I think we got a
lot of good stuff,” Jada said. “He’s unpacking it in the back.”
“
Good,”
Marla said briskly. “Let’s go see what he got.”
The two women
walked toward the back and took a left down the back hall that led to
the delivery door. Derrick was in the truck, placing pieces of
furniture toward the opening of the van. In her mind’s eye, Marla
could see some nice pieces, but her mind was so scattered and
distracted, she couldn’t say what those pieces were.
“
I’m sorry,
Jada,” Marla said. “Do you think you and Derrick can handle this?
I’ve got a killer headache and need to lie down.”
“
Of course,”
Jada said, concerned. “Do you want me to bring you something for
your headache? I’ve got some Extra Strength Tylenol.”
“
Thanks,”
Marla said. “I appreciate it. I’ve got something upstairs. Can
you take care of things?’
Jada nodded,
and Marla walked to the door that opened to the stairway that led to
her apartment above the shop. She walked up the stairs, her heart
heavy with worry. She opened the door at the top of the stairs and
entered her kitchen. Sun streamed through the windows onto her red
Formica vintage table and leather chairs. Marla opened a cabinet door
and found a bottle of aspirin. She shook out three into her palm and
gulped them down with a glass of water. Normally, she would feel
happy to be home, but today she walked to her bedroom and fell on the
bed. Nothing seemed normal anymore.
Chapter
Two
A few hours later
Marla woke up disoriented. The room was completely dark. She groped
for the lamp beside the bed and turned it on. The digital clock read
8:13. The memory of Meredith’s visit flooded over her. She wanted
to call her but didn’t want to be intrusive. Meredith must have
told Sean by now about the tumor, and she had no idea how things were
going over there. She texted Meredith instead, asking her to call her
the next day.
Marla walked
through the living room of the apartment, which she had decorated
with mostly vintage and folk pieces. She went into the kitchen and
opened the refrigerator. There wasn’t much in there, except for
leftover Chinese take-out. Marla got a fork out of the drawer and ate
the shrimp lo mein straight out of the cardboard box, cold. She
barely tasted it.
When she was
finished, she walked into the alcove between the living room and
bedrooms and sat at the massive desk that she had inherited from her
grandfather. Her computer lit up as she touched the mouse. For the
next several hours, Marla researched brain cancer. She visited
webmd.com and the Mayo Clinic sites, before moving on to websites
with personal stories, written by people who had survived or were
being treated for brain tumors. It was encouraging. There were a lot
of treatments, some experimental, that were keeping people alive.
Marla began to feel better and chided herself for overreacting.
She heard a
plaintive meow and realized she had left Lucy outside. The calico
would be hungry. Marla went down the stairs and unlocked the back
door. Lucy walked in and rubbed herself on Marla’s ankles before
heading up the stairs. Marla followed the cat into the kitchen and
put food in her bowl, a turquoise McCoy piece she had bought for the
shop before deciding she liked it too much to sell. Lucy concentrated
on her food and Marla wandered back to her bedroom. She was still
tired and put on a gown before crawling into bed. Lucy jumped up a
few minutes later and Marla fell asleep with the cat curled up
against her legs.
She woke up
with a start to the sound of church bells ringing and cars honking
their horns. She looked at the clock. 3:53. It was a jubilee, which
meant that shrimp and crab and fish had come up to the shore and were
easy picking. It was a complicated situation where conditions had to
be just right that forced the sea creatures to the shallow shore
during a high tide. It had something to do with oxygen levels in the
water, forcing the creatures to seek oxygen above the water and on
the sandy shore. It happened before dawn and was short-lived. But
while it was happening, people harvested the seafood in buckets.
Sometimes it would be a shrimp jubilee, where most of the creatures
were shrimp. Or a crab jubilee. Normally, Marla would have jumped up
and gone to the bay to gather whatever was there. But that morning,
she didn’t care. She could only think about Meredith.
The bells and
horns stopped a few minutes later and Marla dozed. When she woke up
again it was after eight and Lucy was nipping at her toes. Time to
eat, the cat was saying. Marla got up and fed the cat. She would give
Meredith until noon to call her, and then Marla would call her.
Marla wasn’t
very hungry but took an apple from the basket on the table and went
downstairs. It was Saturday, usually a busy day in the shop. Jada had
posted on the website, Facebook, and the blog that Bay Point Antiques
and Vintage had a selection of wooden dough bowls that had just come
in. They were one of the shop’s most popular items. Marla had to
get ready.