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Authors: Florence Osmund

Daughters (47 page)

BOOK: Daughters
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One More Time

The early summer evening was cool—cool enough for Marie and everyone else sitting on her sun porch to be wearing a sweater or light jacket. The sun began its slow descent, giving way to a full moon that hovered right above the tree line, the promise of a peaceful night ahead.

Anna Marie cooed in Karen’s arms while she rocked her in Marie’s newly acquired antique Thonet rocking chair. Less than two months old, the baby already took after her mother—blue eyes, sandy brown hair, and a button nose. Maurice sat in a chair close to them, the smile on his lips showing no sign of fading.

Olivia, now legally adopted, hosted a tea party around the coffee table. Guests included her favorite doll, Betsy; Dangle, her stuffed monkey; Rachael; and Marie. Rachael was preoccupied with sketching Karen and her family. Olivia, who was busy pouring water into everyone’s teacups, appeared to be in a world of her own.

Barry walked in with a birthday cake he and the girls had baked that afternoon while Marie was at the hairdresser’s.

“Well, this may not look as good as what my beautiful wife would have done,” he said, smiling at Marie, “but I can tell you, we sure had fun making it.” He took a seat beside Marie on the wicker love seat and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for cleaning up the mess, dear, and happy birthday.”

“How much longer are you going to be here, Marie?” Maurice asked.

“Oh, we’re pretty much all moved in at Barry’s now. I just wanted for us to get together one more time here before I turn in the keys to Julia.” She sighed. “I’m really going to miss this place.”

“We had a good many talks on this porch,” Karen reminisced.

“I’ll say. Over a good many glasses of wine.”

“You know what we need around here?” Rachael asked.

“I’m almost afraid to ask. What?” Marie asked.

“Music, of course.” She headed toward the radio. “And I get dibs on the station.”

“Not so fast, sweetheart. Your taste in music is…well, shall we say, a little too salty for us oldsters.”

“Marie, you just said my taste in music was a little too angry.”

“I can’t keep all your sayings straight. You know what I meant.”

She tuned in the radio to KSDB, which was playing Frankie Lane’s latest song, “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

Marie gave Rachael a motherly look. “How about some Frank Sinatra, dear?”

“How about the Four Lads instead?”

“Doris Day?”

Major eye roll by the teenager. Rachael looked at Barry with begging eyes. “Hank Williams?”

Barry couldn’t help but smile. “I think Marie would prefer Bing.”

“He’s so...boring.”

“Rachael…”

“I think you may be rattling Marie’s cage, sweetheart.”

Another eye roll.

Barry gave Rachael a disconcerting look. “What, I’m not hep enough for you?”

“It’s ‘hip,’ Barry.”

“Shot down again.”

Rachael left the porch shaking her head and muttering, “This is crazy.”

“What are you serving, Olivia?” Marie asked.

“Ice cream.”

“That’s nice. What flavor?”

“Pokeydoke.”

“What flavor, sweetie?”

“She said pistachio, Mom…I mean Marie,” Rachael shouted from the other room.

Olivia looked at Marie with wide eyes. “I knowed that.”

“Hey, Marie. Where’s the chocolate sauce?”

Olivia’s face lit up. She stopped what she was doing and headed toward the kitchen and Rachael.

“For what?” Marie asked.

“To put on the cake. I didn’t tell Barry, but I forgot to put the eggs in the mix, and it’s awfully dry.”

The four grownups watched a giggling Olivia, whose face was sticky with chocolate sauce, run from Rachael, who chased her with a wet paper towel.

Maurice looked at Karen. Karen looked at Marie. “Is this what we have to look forward to?” she asked her.

Marie smiled at Barry and then Maurice and Karen. “I sure hope so.”

THE END

Don’t miss Florence Osmund’s first novel,
The Coach House
, prequel to
Daughters
.

It’s 1945 Chicago. Anything can happen, and for Richard Marchetti, it usually does.

Marie Marchetti, however, doesn’t know that about her husband. To her, they have the perfect life together. That is, until little things start to pop up that put her on alert: late night phone calls, cryptic receipts hidden in the basement, and a gun in his desk drawer. When she learns he’s secretly attended a mobster’s funeral, her feelings are confirmed. And when she inadvertently interrupts a meeting between Richard and his so-called business associates, he causes her to fall down the basement steps, compelling Marie to run for her life.

Ending up in Atchison, Kansas, Marie quickly sets up a new life for herself. She meets Karen Franklin, a woman who will become her lifelong best friend, and rents a coach house apartment behind a three-story Victorian home. But her attempts at a new life are fraught with the fear that Richard will show up at any time—and who knows what he or his associates will do then? Ironically, it is the discovery of the identity of her real father and his ethnicity that unexpectedly changes her life forever.

What they’re saying about The Coach House…

“The settings in
The Coach House
are described beautifully by Florence Osmund—Chicago and its music venues, New York City, and San Francisco—we get to travel and enjoy these cities with Marie.

“The character development is Osmund’s strength in
The Coach House
. Each character becomes alive in chapter after chapter. It’s hard to put down the book because we get so absorbed with each character—whether it’s Marie, Richard, and Karen, or Richard’s cohort doing his dirty work.


The Coach House
is a superbly written book, in my opinion. It will leave the reader thinking about relationships, adversity, independence and growth, and prejudices. It’s always nice to finish a good book with something to think about.”

—Author and book reviewer, Mary Crocco

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Florence Osmund grew up in a Victorian home in Libertyville, Illinois, complete with a coach house, the same house she used as inspiration for her first novel,
The Coach House
, and its sequel,
Daughters
. She earned her master’s from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and has more than three decades of experience in corporate America. Osmund currently resides in Chicago, where she continues to write novels.

Visit her website at
http://www.florenceosmund.com
, and follow her blog at
http://www.florenceosmundbooks.wordpress.com
.

BOOK: Daughters
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