Free The Promise of Provence (Love in Provence Book 1) by Patricia Sands Page B

strength was waning noticeably, and it troubled her that Kat was working all day and coming home to clean as well as do everything else. This had been the compromise, and Elisabeth admitted to Kat that she looked forward to Hilda’s visits. Elisabeth enjoyed the lovely Scottish lilt to her voice as she related the latest gossip about the royal family and other people in the news.
    After a little initial resistance, Kat rented a hospital bed and set it up in Elisabeth’s main-floor sewing room so the stairs were no longer an issue. Elisabeth had a trunk full of delicate linens that had belonged to her family for generations. The trunk was saved by a faithful family friend during the war and returned to Elisabeth before she left the horror behind.
    Elisabeth had not used them in decades, but Kat convinced her to bring them out of their wrapping and take pleasure from them once more. Elisabeth told her several times how happy she was to see the pillow covers and hand towels in use again.
    The most important issue of the relocation, as Elizabeth referred to the move downstairs, was bringing down the ceramic urn that contained Jozsef’s ashes. This sat on the table by the side of the bed he had occupied throughout their life together. Elisabeth insisted on this and said her last words every evening to her beloved before she fell asleep.
    “You know, we never spent a night apart after the war ended,” she had reminded Katherine. “And we never will.”
    Elisabeth’s other request had been about the carpet that hung on her bedroom wall. She was apologetic for asking, but it was important to her that it be moved to where she was sleeping.
    Katherine was unaware that every night her mother pressed her fore head and palms against the soft—and in some places threadbare—Persian rug, connecting as best she could to all that she had lost so long ago.
    Most evenings, Katherine and her mother played cribbage or honeymoon bridge, sharing a pot of warm milk and Elisabeth’s delicious cookies before they turned in early, Elisabeth falling into contented slumber and Katherine drifting off later, her book slipping from her hands. Sleep was still not her friend, and unpleasant dreams often caused her to lie awake.
    One morning in early February, Katherine did not hear the familiar sounds of her mother in the kitchen or smell the tantalizing breakfast aromas that normally wafted up to her. Somehow she knew, as she hesitantly went down the stairs to her mother’s room.

    “Her heart simply stopped,” Dr. Howitt said to Katherine as he rested his hand on her shoulder. “It was worn out—and, to be honest, it gave her more time than I thought it would. She told me recently she was waiting until she knew you were going to be fine.”
    Katherine’s eyes filled with tears.
    “I had the pleasure of being her doctor, and your dad’s, for over forty years. They were fine people. I miss your father and I will miss your mother now too. It’s the hardest part of getting old, watching the people around you slip away.”
    “I know how much Mother valued your care . . . and your friendship,” said Katherine.
    They had this conversation when Katherine took a gift to his office a few days after her mother’s private family funeral. She was in fact following some wishes Elisabeth had left in a file for Katherine.
    “Mom left her little list of things she wanted me to do after she died,” Katherine said to Molly over coffee on her way home from Dr. Howitt’s office.
    Molly nodded. “I’m so impressed that she talked to you about this—starting years ago. What a great attitude. I can appreciate how satisfying it is to know you are doing what she wanted. I wish I had been that fortunate.”
    “Molly, your parents’ accident was a totally different situation. Your mother never recovered from her coma to express any wishes. It was a tragedy.”
    Molly nodded stiffly and changed the subject as she usually did, keeping her innermost