Free Barefoot in the Rain by Roxanne St. Claire Page A

there she saw the crystal vase perched on that very doily, stuffed with a vibrant bunch of gladiolas that Mary Jo Bloom had bought at Publix for just $3.99.
    “Four bucks,” she’d said with a giggle in her voice to her little girl. “He can’t get too mad about four dollars, can he?”
    Her mother had placed the vase on the kitchen table, foot-long stems popping with life and happiness.
    “Everyone should have fresh flowers in their life, don’t you think, Joss?”
    Jocelyn opened her eyes, barely aware she’d closed them, and stared at the man across the table from her, ignoring the expectant excitement in his eyes and seeing only the anger, the disgust, the self-loathing that he transferred to his family.
    “Do you remember the day you came home from work and your wife had fresh flowers on the table, Guy?”
    He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry. What did they look like?”
    “They were gladiolas.”
    He lifted one of his hunched shoulders. “Don’t know what that is, Missy.”
    “They’re long-stemmed, bright flowers,” she explained. “They come in long bunches and they spread out like flowery arms reaching up to the sky, a bunch ofruffles for petals, in the prettiest reds and oranges you’ve ever seen.”
    He gasped, eyes wide, jaw dropped. A memory tweaked?
    “You came into the house and saw the flowers…”
    “All red and orange? Like long sticks of flowers?” He nodded, excitement growing with each word.
    “You wanted to know how much they cost.”
    “In a glass vase?” He hadn’t heard her, she could tell, as he pushed back the chair. “I know these flowers. I remember them!”
    “Do you remember what happened, Guy?”
    He almost toppled the chair getting up, making Jocelyn grip the table in fear. What was he going to do? Reenact the whole scene?
    “Wait here,” he said, lumbering out of the room.
    Did he want the memory or not? Didn’t he want to know about how he’d picked up that vase, screamed about wasting money, and thrown that bad boy across the linoleum floor, scattering water and flowers and one terrified child who tore under her bed and covered her ears?
    You have no right to be happy!
    Those were the precise words he’d said to her mother. She could still hear his voice echoing in her head.
    “I found it! I found it!”
    Just like that little girl, Jocelyn slapped her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, drowning out the sound of that man hollering.
God damn you, Mary Jo,God damn you.
    Why did he hate her so much?
    “Look, Missy!”
    He slapped a half-finished needlepoint pattern clamped into a round embroidery ring on the table.
    “Those are gladiolas,” he said proudly.
    The work was awful, no two stitches the same size, loose and knotted threads, but the shape of a tangerine-and peach-colored gladiola was clear, the wide-hole netting made for beginners bearing the design of a bouquet in a glass vase.
    “I never could finish it,” he said glumly. “It made me sad.”
    “That’s the memory making you sad.”
    “It is? What happened?”
    She looked at the craft, each little row of stitches so clearly the work of someone who’d labored to pull that silky yarn and follow the simple pattern.
    “Does it really matter, Guy?” she asked.
    His shoulders slumped, tears forming again. “I just want to know why this makes me so damn sad. Every time I look at these flowers, I want to cry.” A fat drop rolled down his cheek. “Do you know why, Missy?”
    Of course she did. “No,” she lied. “I don’t know why they make you sad.”
    “ ’Sokay,” he said, patting her hand with thick, liver-spotted fingers, a fresh smile on his face. “Maybe that Nicey lady will help me figure it out when they do the show.”
    “Yeah. Maybe she will.”

Chapter 7

    N ice work, Palmer.”
    Will didn’t look up at the sound of a female voice, barely audible over the scream of his mitre saw. He recognized the voice, though. “Just a sec, Tessa.” Cutting wood this