Read Promise Me A Rainbow for Free Online

She’d never had the chance to call a grown-up woman by her first name before. Brenda, the girl from the construction office who went with Joe to the movies, had said to call her Brenda, but Joe had never brought her home with him again.
    “Daisy and Eric are in that box,” Ms. Holben said. “Let me take your raincoat.”
    Fritz gave up the poncho, but she was immediately cold without it. She couldn’t keep from shivering. “Why don’t you sit over there,” Ms. Holben said, pointing to the flowery couch.
    Fritz hesitated, then went and sat down where Ms. Holben had pointed.
    “Cover up with this until you get warm,” she said, helping Fritz pull an afghan off the back of the couch. The afghan was white with pink crocheted flowers on it. She handed Fritz the box and went into another room—the kitchen, Fritz could tell when she leaned forward. She expected Ms. Holben to come right back but she didn’t, and after a moment Fritz turned her attention to the box. She glanced again in the direction of the kitchen. It must be all right for her to look into the box. Ms. Holben wouldn’t have given it to her otherwise. She waited a moment longer, then reached in and parted the newspapers. Daisy and Eric were in there. She lifted them out and put the box aside, letting them sit on the afghan on her lap. Daisy was still smiling, and Eric was still falling asleep.
    She looked up to find Ms. Holben watching.
    “Do you like hot chocolate, Fritz?”
    “I like it a lot.”
    “I think I’ll make us some then. It’s nice on a rainy day.”
    “I know how to help,” Fritz offered.
    “Are you still cold?”
    “Not that cold.”
    “Good. Come on, if you’re warm enough. And bring Daisy and Eric. You can tell me about them.”
    Fritz slid off the couch, taking the time to try to rearrange the afghan with one hand while she held on to the gnomes with the other. As she came into the kitchen, Ms. Holben was taking down two cups from a china cabinet filled with blue dishes.
    “I always use the Blue Willow mugs when I make chocolate,” Ms. Holben said. She took down a Blue Willow plate as well. “Would you get the milk out of the refrigerator?”
    Fritz carefully set Daisy and Eric in the middle of the kitchen table, then brought the milk. Together she and Ms. Holben worked to make the hot chocolate—Fritz handling the measuring and Ms. Holben heating the milk on the stove. Fritz watched her closely, comparing her, as she did all women, to the framed picture Joe had of Lisa in her wedding dress. Ms. Holben looked older than Lisa. Her hair was dark and short and curly, not long and blond like Lisa’s. And she didn’t have blue eyes. She wasn’t like Lisa at all, but she was still nice.
    “I almost forgot,” Ms. Holben said as she poured the hot chocolate into the mugs. “We need one more thing.” She went to the refrigerator and got out a container of vanilla ice cream, then put a big spoonful into each cup. “Do you ever put ice cream in your hot chocolate?”
    “Just marshmallows sometimes.”
    “You’ll like this, I think. When I was a little girl and went shopping with my mother, we used to stop in this little drugstore by the bus stop. In the winter, we had hot chocolate with ice cream in it. In the summer we had fresh limeades. I don’t think you can get either one anymore, unless you make them at home. She sat down at the table. “Tell me about Daisy and Eric—I forgot the cookies,” she said, getting up again. She brought a tin of plain butter cookies and put some out on the Blue Willow plate. “Did you have Daisy and Eric long?”
    “Joe got them when I was a little kid. He won them at the PTA. I like them because I like things with mothers.” Fritz let the ice cream bump her upper lip as she sipped the chocolate. Ms. Holben was right. She did like it, and she liked Ms. Holben telling her about when she was a little girl.
    “I like things with mothers, too. Is Joe your brother?”
    “No, he’s my