Read Trouble Won't Wait for Free Online Page A

it. At least I got a two-year degree. Poor Mike just about wore out the roads across the Rockies that year. I still have stacks and stacks of the letters we exchanged, and boxes of dried roses from the countless dozens he brought me. Mike had proposed before I left for school in August, but saved up for the ring until Christmas.
    He lived in one room above his cousin’s garage for very low rent so he could save enough to buy the ring he wanted me to have. It’s a gorgeous ring, and I admit I was completely, utterly, in love. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life, until the days my kids were born.
    * * * *
    I’ve finished with my makeup, ready to go visiting. Aunt Clara loves cordial cherries, so on the way out I grab a box of them from the stash in the garage I keep just for her.
    Clara’s apartment is tiny, like her. She has the world’s smallest recliner and a loveseat even Rachel’s narrow bottom takes up half of. I feel Gulliver-like, walking into this smaller-than-life apartment, like I used to in the kids’ kindergarten classrooms.
    The apartment always, I mean always , smells like rose potpourri, as does anything leaving there. Clara buys the potpourri by the case from some mail-order catalog. Once when she was sick I did her laundry, and when I put it away, found several sachets of the stuff in every drawer ! I don’t mind it, but the combination of the eighty-five degree temperature in here and the strong artificial rose smell makes it too much for Mike to stand.
    He won’t come to her apartment to visit anymore, insisting we take her out or bring her to our house when he wants to see her. The kids still come with me to visit her, in part because of the Nutter Butter, peanut-shaped cookies she keeps on hand. Must be something about peanuts with her, because she also stocks those orange peanut-shaped marshmallows.
    She’s watching for me, and throws her door open before I get a chance to knock. Maintenance got the Christmas lights and decorations up already, and they are all lit on this dismal morning. “Amanda! Look at you, child, you’re wastin’ away to just a whiff of a girl. Why, I think if you turned sideways, a person couldn’t see you. You’re not throwin’ up your meals like the girls do these days?”
    I smile and shake my head. Although it seemed like a feasible shortcut to weight loss a few times, I could never bring myself to purge. “No, ma’am. Just using the legs the good Lord gave me, and walking off the extra weight.”
    “Well, I know that works. Why, EllieMae Kessler walks five miles every day, and she’s seventy-five if she’s a day over forty. I heard talk that she’s lost over a hundred pounds! Isn’t that the darnedest thing?” She’s closed the door now. Can’t let the heat escape–it might dip down to a frigid eighty degrees in here.
    I shed my jacket and lay it across the back of the miniscule loveseat, then turn to hug Clara’s tiny body. It always feels like I might accidentally crush her, until she hugs back and my ribs strain not to crack from her wiry strength. Today she notices I’m thinner than when she last saw me. After I assure her my ribs are not visible, and I’m not “anoremic,” we sit at her table. She’s laid out the usual peanut cookies, plus Fig Newtons. I help myself to one of each, so she can see I still eat. I better not use the bathroom before I leave, lest she suspect me of purging.
    Clara’s smile tells me she’s patting herself on the back for getting me to snack. “Where’s that family of yours?”
    “The kids had sleepovers, and Mike’s hunting.” While telling that fib, I concentrate on the cookie in my hand. Of course, Mike might be hunting this morning. I doubt it, with the hangover he must have, but there’s always a chance.
    “Huntin’. Huh! What’s he done to get you so upset on Thanksgiving Day, of all times?” Small arms cross her chest to emphasize her indignation. “I called there and you had to be