Waiting for Sunrise by Eva Marie Everson Page A

brother . . .
    Still, she mentally calculated: Harold was nine years old now, Billy eight. She relaxed her mind enough to wonder what they looked like. When she’d left, Billy looked remarkably like their mother. Dark hair, almond-shaped eyes. Although hers were blue and his were coal black.
    Harold looked more like his father.
    Patsy imagined them both, all filled out, freckles across their noses, feet growing out of shoes faster than Mama could work her fingers to the bone to buy more. She also wondered, with the nation’s economy booming, if Mr. Liddle was doing all right financially. Maybe Mama didn’t have to work anymore doing other people’s laundry. Maybe she got to wear those pretty dresses she loved and had enough nylons to keep her socially in step with the other ladies in town.
    Sometimes, when she tried—which wasn’t often—Patsy thought she could still smell her mother’s scent. And sometimes, when she was overly tired, she dreamed of Ira Liddle. Those dreams never came out right for her. Never. They left her frightened, a shell of the person she hoped to become.
    Now she opened her eyes to the small room around her. Since her arrival, she’d made personal changes. She’d learned how to crochet in home ec and she’d made an afghan throw for the foot of the bed. When she and Gilbert married, she’d take it with her, lay it on their bed. The thought made her shudder with anticipation.
    She’d joined the ladies of the church quilting bee. Three quilts, made from scraps Mam had been collecting over the years, were stacked in the rocker still in the corner of the room. The ladies of the bee had made a special wedding ring quilt with scalloped edges for her and Gilbert; she planned to use it as their spread.
    Patsy had also taken up reading; it helped pass the hours between being at school, being at work, being at church, and being with Gilbert. Papa insisted that she purchase her books rather than get them from the local library. He went out and bought a beautifully crafted claw-foot, oak case. He and Mam gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday.
    It would also go with her to her new home.
    Her new home . . .
    She spread her fingers wide and stared at the ring hugging her left third finger. Compared to the one her mother had worn when Patsy was just a little thing, it was hardly worth gloating over. Les Sweeny had given his bride-to-be the ring his grandfather had given to his bride, Patsy’s great-grandmother. It had been an unusual ring—perhaps that was why Patsy remembered it so—with intertwining diamonds and sapphires orbiting around a center round diamond. Patsy remembered how her mother pampered the ring, touching it lightly with her fingertips, refusing to take it off.
    But at some point she must have.
    “Patsy?”
    Patsy jumped, turned her head toward the door to see Papa’s large size all but blocking the view into the hall. “Hey, Papa.”
    He took a step into her room. “You look . . . have you been crying?”
    She scooted until her back came to rest against the bed’s headboard. She brushed her fingertips across her cheeks, felt the moisture, and said, “A little. Maybe.”
    He pointed to the foot of the bed. “Do you mind if I sit?”
    She shook her head no.
    His weight caused the springs to creak and moan. Patsy watched as he removed the round glasses pressed to the bridge of his nose. He made a show out of pulling a handkerchief from his front shirt pocket, then cleaning the lenses, one at a time. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
    Patsy fought past a knot in her throat. “I was just thinking, Papa,” she all but whispered.
    He grinned at her. “About changing your mind?”
    She laughed lightly. “Oh no, Papa. That’s not going to happen.”
    He took a deep breath, exhaled. “About your mother, I suspect. Your real mother.”
    Patsy felt her eyes widen. “How’d you—”
    “I’m no mind reader, my dear. Mam has been worried.” He cleared his