Read The View from Prince Street for Free Online

building or build a new structure. But sometimes a person has to go it alone to find their own way.” He looked as though he’d say more. “Thank you.” I turned to my house and slowly closed the front door.
    Long seconds passed before I heard the engine turn over and the sound of Zeb slowly driving away. Letting my head fall back against the door, I pressed the stone to my chest and allowed the cold weight to seep through my silk blouse to my skin, remembering back to the last bittersweet moment I felt pure love and pain: the moment I laid the boy in another mother’s arms.

November 6, 1751
    Dearest Mother,
    The morning sun peeked above the horizon as I watched Faith swaddle the freshly fed babes in thick wool blankets and lay them carefully on the blankets near the fire. As much as I feared her, I must confess that I was drawn to the babes. My breasts still heavy with milk, I ached to hold my lost children in my arms again. When she caught me staring, she said, “I prayed never to leave the loving embrace of my intended, Mr. Talbot, but the fates stole him and my happiness. Here I am again braving not the vast seas but the thick wilderness.” Her barely whispered words gave me the courage to ask why she chose to return to our farm. “It is all I know. And if not for the babes, I would not be here.” Mr. McDonald came in the room at that moment and saw us staring at each other. Uneasy, he looked me in the eyes and said, “She needs us.” When I rose off my bed to argue he said, “You’re unwell. You need her. I need her. Like it or not, we are all bound.”
    â€”P

Chapter Two

    Lisa Smyth
    M ONDAY , A UGUST 15, 2:00 P.M.
    Y ears of living on the open road had dulled my memories of Northern Virginia rush-hour traffic. One look at my watch and I remembered that the rush of cars and drivers clogging the Beltway that encircled Washington, D.C., started as early as two thirty in the afternoon. With so much humanity crammed into a small space, it was a wonder anyone accomplished much. As I inched along the southern side of the Beltway, I regretted my late start. Rookie mistake.
    But the noon AA meeting had lasted longer than expected and I’d lingered. I, Lisa Smyth, needed an extra dose of support. I quickly hurried by the Prince Street house and collected my aunt’s dog, Charlie, a seven-year-old chocolate Lab. We took a quick spin around the block before I put him in the car and we made the trip to the nursing home.
    The Braddock Road exit directed me away from the traffic snarl and through a collection of stoplights past endless strip malls and housing developments. Finally, I was able to turn off a primary road onto a tree-lined side street that fed into the arched half-circle driveway of the assisted-living home.
    I parked my aunt Amelia’s 1989 Buick LeSabre. The car had been sitting in the garage for at least six months and I realized that if someone didn’t start driving it soon, the old gas would ruin the engine. So instead of driving my truck, I was driving Blue Betty, as Amelia called the car.
    I leashed Charlie and we both moved toward the plain brick building while I tried to be upbeat for Charlie and Amelia’s sake. “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” I repeated the AA mantra, realizing right now it was easier said than done.
    Accept what you cannot change
, I thought, as I moved toward the front entrance. Charlie regarded me with so much trust that I pulled back my shoulders and dug deep for a smile. The daily visits didn’t last long, and though some might argue they were unnecessary, I refused to miss one, given the debt I owed the woman inside.
    Through the front doors, antiseptic smells mingled with a sickening sweet minty aroma that never failed to steal my appetite and challenge my resolve. They called it assisted living. This wasn’t a place of life, but of pending death. The people who