Free Heart of Clay by Shanna Hatfield Page B

she asked with her head still in the refrigerator,
exploring the options available.
    “Nope. I’m going to eat at the clubhouse
tonight, but thanks.” He walked over to the coffee table and picked
up a photo album. “I’ve been looking at photos of Margo and
thinking about our years together. Would you like to look with
me?”
    The last thing Callan wanted to do was look
at photos of a woman she wished nearly every day she could forget,
but she sensed her dad needed her to want to see them. She finished
mixing up the cookies, dropped them onto a cookie sheet, and placed
it in the oven. After taking two mugs out of the cupboard, she put
in tea bags, added hot water from the now whistling teakettle, and
stirred sugar into both mugs. Callan and her dad shared the same
sweet tooth.
    With the spicy scent of the cookies filling
the apartment, they settled at the counter with the album between
them. Callan couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. “Daddy, I
don’t think I’ve ever seen these pictures. Have you always had this
album?”
    Big Jim got a far-away look on his face
before he returned his focus to Callan. “Your mother hated these
photos and I thought she’d thrown them away. When you kids were
helping me clean out her things, I found the pictures stuffed in
the bottom of her sock drawer.” He laughed and shook his head.
“That was just like her. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find
them.”
    The photos showed Margo when she was a young
girl, looking happy and carefree. One photo in particular caught
Callan’s eye. It was a picture of her mother with Aunt Julie,
beaming a beautiful smile and looking like a model in her stylish
1950s attire. Margo’s dark hair was short and curled, she had on
lipstick, a long, formal dress with a smattering of sequins across
the shoulders, and a pair of the cutest heels Callan had ever
seen.
    She never remembered her mother caring about
her appearance or her clothes. Margo always looked neat, but often
frumpy.
    As Callan turned the pages, it showed a
young Margo and Jim getting married, then Margo looking heavy with
child. That would be Bob. The remaining photos were of Margo and
Jim with Bob as a tiny baby. She never realized what a homely
little thing he’d been. It seemed odd she and Josh looked so much
alike while Bob looked nothing like either of them.
    Glad she hadn’t voiced her thoughts, she
turned back to the photo of Margo and Julie. She sensed a story
lingering in the shadows that no one wanted to discuss.
    Callan stood and took the cookies out of the
oven, placed two on a plate, and slid it over the counter to her
dad, then returned to her seat next to him.
    “Daddy, in this picture mother looks so
happy and young. I don’t ever remember her looking like that.”
Callan pushed the album closer to her dad.
    “She was then. That was out at my folks’
home, just before we got married.” Big Jim stared at the photo with
a wistful gleam in his eyes. “Those were some happy times. They
sure enough were. We went to a grange dance that evening. Boy, she
was something back then. ”
    Big Jim turned a few pages and Callan
studied the look on her mother’s face in the photographs. With each
page that turned, the joy seemed to evaporate until there was none
left.
    “What happened, Daddy? What happened to make
her so unhappy with life?” Callan had often wanted to ask the
question, but was concerned for her dad’s feelings. He had loved
her mother with unwavering devotion, even though most people who
knew them couldn’t figure out why.
    Big Jim didn’t answer right away. First, he
took a cookie and bit into it. The smile on his face told her he
appreciated the treat. After finishing the cookie, he looked Callan
in the eye.
    “Callan, your mother had some big hurts in
her life and they came pretty young. Some folks might have been
able to forget and forgive then moved on with their lives. Margo
couldn’t let it go. Those hurts grew and festered over time