Free The Heavenly Fugitive by Gilbert Morris

coat, Grandmother. Have you had it long?”
    “Mark got it for me ten years ago. It’s mink, you know. He paid way too much for it, but I’ve always loved it.” The coat was indeed the softest and most comfortable thing Amelia had ever put on. “I expect it’ll be yours one day,” Lola said.
    Amelia blinked with surprise at this calm reference to Lola’s leaving the world.
    “That won’t be for a long time, Grandmother.”
    Lola simply smiled. “Maybe not, but in the meantime, I’m helping Cora cook.”
    “I tried to run her out of this here kitchen,” Cora said, “but she won’t go. Maybe you can make her mind, Miss Amelia.”
    Immediately Amelia went over and plucked an apron from a peg on the wall. “You’re talking to a professional cook.”
    “What you mean professional cook?” Cora sniffed.
    “I mean I’ve been cooking for a living at a restaurant. So, Grandmother, why don’t you sit on the stool and tell me about your misspent youth while I help Cora.”
    Lola protested, but Amelia led her to the stool and helped her down. “Now, you sit there.”
    She turned back to Cora and gave her a big hug. Amelia had spent time in the kitchen with Cora during her brief stay in the Winslow house last year. “You taught me enough about cooking to get me a job. Now, what are we cooking today?”
    “We’s gonna prepare the turkey so’s it’s ready for roasting tomorrow and make corn-bread stuffing.”
    Lola laughed. “You ought to hear Cora’s opinion of Yankee cooking.”
    “They cain’t cook nothin’! ” Cora said vehemently. “Look what they do with dressin’. They put white bread in it! Now ain’t that a tragic shame? Ain’t nothin’ but corn-bread dressin’s gonna be any good!”
    “What can I do, Cora?”
    “Here, you work on this celery whilst I makes the corn bread.”
    Making the dressing was an exacting task under Cora’s tutelage. The celery had to be split first with a sharp knife and then cut into tiny fragments. Amelia obediently began cutting the stalks into small cubes, all the time listening as her grandmother spoke about the rest of the family. Cora went about mixing up the corn-bread batter, then scooped it into a pan and shoved it in the oven to bake. After this she measured out the remaining ingredients, which included butter, chickenbroth, crumbled bacon, salt, pepper, and bacon drippings, and put them into a large bowl. The corn bread came out of the oven and was ready to be crumbled into the bowl at the same time Amelia had finished chopping an onion.
    When the corn-bread stuffing was finished, Cora said, “I gots to leave for a minute. You be sure you don’t mess up none of the cookin’, Miss Amelia.”
    “I won’t,” Amelia promised. She waited until Cora had left the room and then shook her head. “She’s an amazing woman.”
    “I don’t know what we would have done without her. She idolized your grandfather, and he was so fond of her.”
    Amelia moved over to the stove and picked up the kettle to fill it. “I think I’d like some hot tea.”
    “That would be good.”
    Amelia made the tea as she listened to her grandmother, then brought the teapot to the low counter, where she poured two small cups and sat down with her grandmother. The two sipped it gratefully.
    “Nothing like hot tea on a cold day,” Lola said. She looked out the window and saw the snow falling. For a time she sat there silently, and then she turned and put her dark eyes on Amelia. “Every time it snows like this, I think of the time your grandfather and I got snowed in, in a big blizzard down in Texas.”
    “Tell me about how you met Grandfather.”
    “But I’ve already told you.”
    “I know, but you always think of something different. Please tell me again.”
    Then Lola began speaking of how she had been raised in a saloon by her mother and felt helpless to escape her circumstances. When her brother-in-law forced his attentions on her, a young railroadman named Mark