A Man for Mom
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Gina Ferris Wilkins
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18,2K
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17
Prologue
“You’re a very fortunate woman, Frannie. You have a wonderful family.”
Frances Carson looked up from the huge bouquet of mixed flowers that had just been delivered to her front door, and smiled at Lila Twining, her best friend since elementary school. They’d known each other nearly seventy years, their friendship having survived childhood spats, wartime marriages, births of children and grandchildren, and family tragedies, including the deaths of both their husbands. They still lived within a few blocks of each other in a quiet neighborhood in Malvern, the small Arkansas town where they’d been raised. They had coffee together several mornings each week—like this bright Wednesday in early September.
Frances set the floral arrangement, a joint gift from her son’s offspring, Rachel, Cody and Celia, next to a bouquet of roses that had been delivered only an hour earlier. Two cards were already displayed on the antique sideboard, one from her daughter, one from her son and his wife. “Yes, I am fortunate. Both my children and all four of my grandchildren remembered that today would have been my sixtieth wedding anniversary.”
With a faint smile, Frances touched a fingertip to one velvety rose petal. “I wonder which of his cousins called Adam and ordered him to send flowers?” she mused aloud, naming her eldest grandson, the only child of her daughter, Arlene, and the late Dr. Jason Stone. She answered her own question before Lila had a chance to speak. “Rachel, probably. She’s the one who is always so serious about her responsibilities, particularly to her family.”
“Maybe Adam remembered to send the roses all by himself,” Lila commented, though even she didn’t seem to take the suggestion very seriously.
Frances laughed. “Now, come on, Lila,” she said. “We both know my Adam too well to believe that.”
Lila smiled in return. “Rachel probably called him,” she conceded.
“It doesn’t matter. It was still sweet of him to send the roses. He didn’t have to.”
“Whatever his shortcomings, Adam adores you and you know it, Frances Carson. And so do Rachel, Cody and Celia. You’re a very fortunate woman,” Lila repeated.
“Yes,” Frances agreed again. “I’ve had a great deal of love in my life. From my parents, then Henry and our two children, and now from my grandchildren and two darling great-grandchildren. If only...” Her voice trailed off wistfully.
“If only?” Lila prodded curiously.
“If only I could know that my grandchildren will find that same satisfaction for themselves. It isn’t right that all of them should be grown and single, Lila. Growing older without the companionship of a lifelong mate—none of them knowing the happiness Henry and I found together as the years passed.”
“They’re still young, Frannie. They have time to find their mates.”
“Not so young anymore,” Frances argued. “Adam’s thirty-eight, Rachel thirty-one, Cody almost thirty. Celia will be twenty-four soon. I was married and had my first child by then.”
“You really shouldn’t group Rachel with the others,” Lila suggested gently. “She would still be happily married if poor Ray hadn’t died so young.”
“I know,” Frances agreed sadly. “It broke my heart for her, of course. But it’s been three years, Lila, and she hasn’t even dated anyone since. She’s too young to put away all her dreams and live only for her work and her children.”
“She has changed since Ray’s death,” Lila agreed, her faded blue eyes sorrowful. “She’s so serious all the time now.”
“Yes.” Frances sighed deeply. After a moment of comfortable silence between the friends, she spoke again. “I have little money and not much in the way of valuable possessions to leave my grandchildren, Lila. But there is one legacy I would leave them if I could. I would give each of them the treasures that I found with my Henry. Love. Fulfillment. Adventure. Compassion. Loyalty. And laughter. Especially laughter.”
Lila sighed, too. “I’d like my grandchildren to have those things, too. They’re all married, of course, and I can only hope...but there’s little we can do about their lives, Frances.”
Frances looked thoughtfully at the two floral arrangements sitting on her mother’s old buffet table. “I wonder...”
