Free Glimmers of Change by Ginny Dye Page A

she said.
    Elizabeth cocked a brow. “I helped you cook dinner,” she reminded her. “There’s nothing else.”
    Alice looked coy. “Did I say anything about cooking it?” She stood and walked over to the pantry. “I barely got this hidden before you came in,” she teased Elizabeth. She smiled broadly as she reached into the pantry, pulled out a dish covered in a towel, placed it on the table, and whipped the towel off.
    “Pie!” the women cried in unison.
    “Not just any pie,” Alice said proudly. “This is—”
    “Opal’s apple pie! She always puts a little apple shape on the crust on one edge as her signature,” Janie said in awe. “How did you…?”
    Alice tried to look nonchalant. “I got out of class a little before the rest of you so I decided to swing by Eddie and Opal’s restaurant. I’ve been thinking about this pie ever since you took me there last week. She had some coming out of the oven just as I got there.” She grinned again. “It helped keep my hands warm on the way home.”
    Elizabeth jumped up to get a knife. “I’ll cut it,” she offered.
    “Into four pieces,” Florence instructed.
    “Four?” Alice asked doubtfully. “We always cut pies into eight slices.”
    “That’s because you didn’t grow up with three brothers,” Florence answered. “Mama always let us cut the pie into four pieces.” She rubbed her hands in anticipation. “That way we always got a quarter of a pie.” She smacked her lips. “I’m tall, but my brothers are much bigger than me. It took a lot to fill us up. What’s the point of a tiny piece of pie? We have no one to impress with our feminine sensibilities. I say we eat enough to count!”
    “Sounds great to me,” Janie said enthusiastically, as she laughed and eyed the pie. “We’ll need the extra calories to stay warm in all this cold weather.”
    Alice still looked doubtful.
    Elizabeth, a big smile on her face, carefully cut the pie into four slices. “Alice, really?” she asked. “You are going against every convention of proper society to become a woman doctor, and you’re struggling with cutting a pie into quarters?”
    Alice finally laughed and reached for her plate. “You’re absolutely right,” she admitted. “It’s amazing to me how someone’s beliefs can become your own even when there is no justification for it. I had a man call me a pitiful excuse for a woman today when I started into class.”
    The three women nodded with sympathetic understanding. All of them had experienced it.
    “If I can stand against that, what will keep me from eating a quarter of a pie? In fact, I might buy another one and eat the whole thing myself,” Alice finished defiantly. She dug into the pie, took a bite, and rolled her eyes. “Opal makes the best apple pie in the world,” she declared. She closed her eyes for a long moment and opened them to look at Janie. “Opal and Eddie asked about you. Opal said to tell you she had a sweet potato casserole with your name on it.”
    Janie pretended to swoon as she finished chewing a big bite. “Next to her apple pie, Opal’s sweet potato casserole is the best thing in the world.” She brought another bite to her lips. “How are they doing?”
    Alice hesitated.
    Janie put her fork back down. “Alice?”
    Alice shook her head. “They didn’t say anything,” she said quickly. “It was just something in Opal’s eyes. She didn’t seem as happy as she did when we were there before.”
    “She’s probably freezing to death,” Florence observed. “Isn’t this her first northern winter?”
    “Yes,” Alice agreed. “That might be all it was. They had their woodstove blazing in the middle of the restaurant, but I know that place is hard to keep warm. If they’re not home all day long, I imagine they go back to a very cold home.”
    Janie nodded, knowing Opal and Eddie lived in little more than a shack so they could pour all their money into the restaurant. She could imagine the strain was