Dedication
This book is dedicated to my sweet dad-in-law,
who passed away so suddenly in September, 2018.
He was one of my biggest fans.
“It’s like I can hear your voice when I read your books,” he would always say to me when he read a new one, not commenting of the amount of profanities I use :)
I wish he could read this one, too. He had such a soft heart, too, and I’m sure he would have loved this new story about Ella and her crazy family. I love you, John <3
Copyright 2018 Charlotte Roth
Cover design by Amy Queau
Edited by Traci Sanders
This work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons is unintentional. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the author.
To connect with or learn more about the author and her books go to: www.charlotterothbooks.com
CHAPTER 1
Ticket to ride
Dad looked ridiculous in his 12-man oversized jersey and faded Sounders hat, a silly smile plastered on his face.
“I’ve got this,” he hollered. I caught his eyes and was immediately taken back to a moment nearly four years earlier, where he sat in the cab of the big U-Haul truck that would take us on a trip across the entire country. A trip that would change my life forever.
“You sure you know how to drive this thing?” Mom put down her pruning scissors, her eyes darting nervously to the large, muddy rear wheels.
Dad tipped his cap and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. The guy said to turn it on here… and then set it in gear and it’ll—”
The big muddy tractor sputtered loudly and jumped backwards in a giant leap, almost throwing Dad off.
“Frank?” Mom shot to her feet. “You okay?” she yelled, her high pitchy voice matching her concerned face.
“Oh dear.” Martha grabbed me, almost digging her nicely manicured nails into my arm.
“I got it. I got it.” Dad finally managed to stop the big aggressive vehicle only about half a foot from Mom’s meticulously planned rose garden.
“Great, Dad. You almost ran over Mom’s roses. On a scale of one to ten for ‘project plant-more-flowers-in-backyard,’ how do you think you’re doing?” Carefully, I removed Martha’s firm grip on my arm and picked up my coffee mug from the tree stump. “He’s fine.”
“Phew, that was a close call.” Martha leaned back in the Adirondack chair again and picked up her knitting needles. She kept saying her eyesight was getting too poor to knit, her fingers too stiff. Still, she kept moving on to the next knitting project. And it was always in some hideous shade of pastel colors—the color of Monet, as she said.
“At least this time he didn’t almost run someone over.” Mom clicked her tongue and raised an eyebrow at Martha and me.
“Ran over someone?”
“Yup, last time Dad went all John Deere on us, he rented one of those small mechanical diggers to expose all the big rocks in the backyard. He was doing a pretty good job—staying clear of most of the flower beds and toys scattered around the yard—that is until he almost ran over our new neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. King, who had come around with some homemade suck-up-to-our-new-neighbor pie.”
“Oh dear.” Martha dropped one of the knitting needles on the floor and I picked it up for her.
“Yes. Oh, John Deere. I swear, poor Mrs. King almost dropped the huckleberry pie all over her nice white blouse. And, I must add, it was as smooth as a baby’s ass.” Mom picked up the pruning scissors and continued cutting away on the wild blueberry branches. “Anyway, she might as well have. I’m sorry to sound rude, but the pie was ho-rrible. Too dry and too sweet. Not like any of Miss T’s.” Mom’s eyes shifted to mine.
I leaned back and closed my eyes and whispered, “Dear old Miss T.” Even though it had been almost four years ago, I could still picture her so clearly the night she had come around, in the pouring rain in her pink night gown and slippers, her hair a mess of wet, unwinding curlers. I could still hear her voice as she read the letters out loud every evening, and I would never forget the first time we visited her house. She was all dressed up, drinking whiskey and quoting Pulp Fiction. She was the tiniest and most peculiar old lady I had ever met, but she had the heart of a giant. It was still hard to think about how she had just been erased from the surface of the earth. She’d swept through my life so quickly but left a huge hole in my life and footprints on my heart.
“She sure knew how to bake.” I felt Mom’s hand on my knee and I looked up. “She sure was something.”
“I wish I could’ve met her.” Martha looked up from her knitting. “She sounds truly—”
Her voice was interrupted by the intense rumble of a large machine revving high, followed by an even louder series of profanities. We all craned our necks to see the tractor pressed up against the old rotten fence in the far corner.
“I got it. I got it,” Dad yelled as he jumped from the tractor.
“Just don’t go near the swing set.” Mom pointed the pruning scissors in the direction of the strollers standing side by side in the shady spot under the swing set.
“Yes, ma’am.” Dad leaned against the tractor, took off his cap and squinted at the sun.
“Beautiful Saturday, huh?”
“It sure is, Frank.” Martha sat back in the chair and took in a mouthful off the fresh mid-morning air.
“It sure is.” Mom lay down the pruning scissors on the grass, a wide smile on her face. Even with her big Lady Gaga shades on, I could tell she was rolling her eyes at me. In Dad’s calendar, there are only beautiful Saturdays. It can be bright and sunny, pouring rain, or even a blinding blizzard can cover the earth and he’d still look up and say the exact same words: “Beautiful Saturday, huh?”.
“Anyway, I’d better…” Dad looked up at the big tractor and raked his hand over his stubbled face.
Martha leaned over and whispered, “He has no clue what he’s doing, right?”
“Nope,” Mom and I said at the exact time. “When he came home with that thing, Ella and I burst into laughter. I might even have asked Alexa to play ‘Ticket to Ride.’”
“Ah.” With the mention of “Ticket to ride,” Martha’s face lit up and, of course, she and Mom started singing a few notes of the chorus, “‘He’s got a ticket to ri-i-ide, and he don’t care.’”
“But all this—” Mom continued on her own, spreading out her arms, “is actually all Frederick’s and your fault.”
“Pardon?”
“Mostly Frederick’s,” Mom clarified. “Well, ever since we went to your house and Frank showed him the greenhouse and fancy composting system you have going on in your backyard, he’s been out here every single Saturday—digging, pulling, fertilizing, planting. You name it.”
I looked over at Dad. He was still looking up at the big John Deere tractor, scratching the back of his neck.
Mom was right: it was like he had become obsessed with everything with the word “yard” or “waste” in it. But then again, this is the man who moved us over 2000 miles to become the VP of an environmental organization. This is the man who will reprimand you for accidently throwing a tiny innocent apple core in the wrong compost container (we have three). This is the man who once got into a fight with his old boss about the firm’s paper recycling policy and had left with the infamous words: “Elvis has left the building.”
“Yo
u know what they say: ‘What’s good for the soil is good for the soul.’” Martha picked up her tea cup and blew over the hot beverage. “By the way, you said you had some news…” She looked at me from over her cup.
“You’re asking this girl about news?” Mom sneered. “I know she’s only a few weeks shy of turning twenty-one, but she’s as adventurous as a seventy-one-year-old. No offense.” Mom tossed her head back and laughed.
“No offense taken.” Martha waved a hand dismissively in the air. “I do believe I get out more than this one.” They both looked at me and giggled like two teenage girls. “Anyway,” she continued with laughter in her voice, “what’s the news?”
Mom grabbed a water bottle from the cooler and dragged one of the patio chairs over next to Martha. “Frank finally got the funding for his windmill project in Belgium—”
“—Holland, Mom.”
She rolled her eyes at me and sat down. “You say potato, I say tomato.”
“Well, say that to the people in Holland.”
“Or Belgium,” Martha added with a tiny nod in my direction.
“Anyway, that rich lady he told you about—the widow to that big Wall Street finance banker, the one who owns, like, half a mansion on Mercer Island—well , she finally signed off on the whole project. Frank is flying over next week, I think. And get this, he’ll be going there for four weeks this summer and we’re going with him.” Mom threw both hands in the air and gave a “woohoo!”
She had been so excited when Dad told us the news three week earlier. She danced around the living room with both Ava and Alfred, shouting that she would finally be able to drink wine and eat pizza at the top of the Spanish steps; that she would finally get to enjoy real French coffee and eat real flaky and buttery croissants in Paris; that she would finally be eating olives straight from a olive tree in Skopelos while drinking ice-cold Retsina straight from the bottle, which—according to Mom, a.k.a Anthony Bourdain—is what they do in Greece. No questions asked.
“There are other things to do in Europe besides eat,” I had reminded her, and she looked at me like I was speaking Mandarin. Mom basically lives to eat. She actually goes to bed excited about the pot of coffee and toast with jam waiting for her in the morning. Amazingly, she still weighs the same as in high school—give or take a few baby pounds since Ava.
“How exciting. For all of you.” Martha picked up her tea cup again and looked over at me with eyes full of memories. “Europe. I would love to go again.”
“Well, this one is not going.” Mom was not able to hide the disappointment in her voice.
Martha almost choked on her tea. “Who says no to a trip to Europe, to excellent wine and mouth-watering sourdough bread?”
“That’s what I said, but she has other plans.” Mom unscrewed the lid on her water bottle and took a long sip.
“Well, you just teased me for not having any plans, and I actually do for once.” I looked over at Martha. “After three long years, my cousin Maddie is finally coming to visit me this summer. She booked the plane ticket about three months ago, and she has planned a big belated twenty-first birthday for me. You should know all this. You and Eleanor are babysitting Alfred. On the third?”
Martha looked up at the sky as if trying to remember. “Oh yes, that’s right. The sleepover with El.”
“Besides, I can’t have any of all that mouth-watering bread you two are always going on and on about,” I reminded her, trying to sound all cool about it, even though it still hurt to say it out loud three years later. It wasn’t so much the bread, per se, or the cookies, bagels, donuts, or slice of pizza that I couldn’t have anymore; it was the constant feeling of being a burden, of feeling different, and not everyone was as understanding as Martha. Far from it.
Martha put her cup down. “I’m sorry, I…” Briefly, she looked over at Mom before she continued, though venturing off on a bit of a tangent. “Which reminds me. I just found this yummy recipe for a gluten-free, celiac-safe lasagna to cook for you on my birthday. I can’t wait for you to try it.” She clapped her hands softly to-gether and smiled.
“You’re so sweet, Martha, but you really don’t have to.”
“Of course, I do. It’s my pleasure.” She leaned back in her chair and winked at me. “And it’s my, or our, pleasure to babysit Alfred any time. You know that too.”
“I know. Well, anyway, between Maddie coming here, and studying, it’s just bad timing.” I looked over at Mom and offered her a half-hearted shrug.
“FYI: It’s called online college for a reason. You can actually bring your homework with you, if you didn’t know.” Mom put the cap back on the bottle and looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
“FRSA: For real, smart ass? But I won’t get a lot of homework done if I’m climbing the Eiffel Tower with a thirty-three-pound toddler strapped to my back, or sitting in a café, sipping wine, which I’ve been able to do since I was, like, three.” I leaned back in my chair and squinted at the sun. “It’s just not a good time to go. I’ve made up my mind,” I lied. I had made of my mind, but I was starting to have second thoughts. I just didn’t want her to know. Not yet. If I told her, she would never get off my case.
“Okay, okay, I’m just saying … if you change your mind, you can always come with me and I’ll throw you a big coffee and Danish GF brunch in Copenhagen—in Denmark which, I’m just saying, happens to be the land of your ancestors. And a place you’ve been dying to go to since you were a little girl and ever since we read about it in the the the—”
“—forbidden letters.” Martha’s voice was laced with humor. Even though she had forgiven us a long time ago, she still loved to tease us about it. She said she liked the way we both turned beet-read in the face whenever she mentioned the letters. Today was no exception.
“Yes, they were so inspirational.” Mom laid her hand on top of Martha’s and smiled. “Me and Miss T would imagine how you and Frederick walked around the queen’s castle, eating ice cream in the sun.” Mom looked over at me and fluttered her eyelids dramatically. “This could be us—give or take a few toddlers.”
“Please don’t start again. Besides, the summers in Denmark are not that great. It rains half the time and—”
“—I just wish you were going with us, is all. Dad will be in Belgium working all day, every day, and it’ll only be me and Ava. I know she’s cute and everything, but how am I going to talk about all the weird people behind their backs? Who am I gonna eat dinner and have coffee with? It would almost count as the girls’ trip we never had.”
“It’s still Holland, and you’ll be fine as long as there’s a menu card attached to the end of your arm. And you have Ava. There’s your girls’ trip right there.” I leaned back and looked up at the bird feeder. A small blue bird was sitting on the little stick, sucking on the sweet honey blend.
“And, of course,” Mom continued, obviously not letting it go so easily, “there’s one more thing.” She looked over at Martha, her face folded in a more serious expression. “It would also be a great opportunity to go to Berlin.” She looked down and smoothed the front of her garden pants.
“What’s in Berl… Oh, I see.” Martha’s eyes darted back and forth between Mom and me.
“As I said: I’ll be here celebrating my birthday with Maddie. And you, Martha, are babysitting Alfred and Harvey Keitel.” I stood up with my back to Mom, but I could still sense the concerned look she was offering to Martha. Up until this point I was almost sure she wasn’t going to bring it up today. Of course, this was not the first time. Ever since the very first ultrasound, where I had passed out on the floor, with Mom, Dad, and Dr. Mancini and her bullet-proof thick glasses hovering over me, the sound of a new heartbeat filling the air and my heart; she had aired the possibility of going to Berlin and finding him. “That is, if that’s what you want, sweetie,” she had added, exchanging a look with Dad. I always replied that I wasn’t ready to confront him. That I wasn’t sure if I really wanted him to know. I know she was only tryi
ng to be supportive and “offer parental guidance” to use her exact words. But every time she brought it up, I ended up feeling even more lost and confused. Did I want him to know? Was I being unfair to him and to Alfred? And would Alfred grow up resenting me if I didn’t at least try to find his birth dad?
“Speaking of Alfred,” Martha said in a cheerful voice, “I think I see movement in one of the majesties’ strollers, so you two better get washed up.”
I grabbed my phone from the apron, one of Mom’s newest designs—purple with patchwork and six yellow “handy” pockets on the front. “It’s only, like, ten-thirty. They should be napping for another hour at least.” I feigned disappointment, but I was happy for the distraction.
“Well, you tell that to Alfred. I see hands trying to make their way through the mosquito net, and I’m sure he’ll wake Ava up in no time. I’d better wash these dirty hands.” Mom waved her muddy hands above her head as she walked toward the outdoor sink.
As if on cue, a loud cry escaped from inside Alfred’s stroller.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m right here.” I wiped my hands on the fancy apron and unfastened the net. Even though I was always happy when it was time to put him down for his nap—happy that I could finally have a few hours to myself to study, eat, read a book, or simply catch up on some good old z’s—my heart always swelled when I saw his little face again. His cheeks were always sprinkled with little red dots, wet curls stuck to the back of his neck from sweat, and his eyes were full of life. “Come here, little guy. Did you have a good nap?” I picked him up and kissed him on his warm, damp cheek. “See what Granddad is doing? He’s playing with a big boy tractor.” I pointed over at Dad, still looking up at the tractor as if wondering how to get the thing to move forward.
“Playing is the right word for it, all right.” I looked down at Mom, squatting down, peeking in at Ava through the mosquito net.
“Still asleep?”
Lost in Love (The Miss Apple Pants series Book 2) Page 1
