work into her hectic schedule—and spend time with her mother, too. Unfortunately, with a full-time job and tons of paperwork at night, she had not been as active as she would have liked, yet another bone of contention between her and her mother.
Her mother let out a long sigh. “All right. I’ll go to the hospital, but you need to write out your check first, Doctor Stafford. I’ll take it with me.”
Chuckling, the doctor left the room to make arrangements for them to be met at Tilton General Hospital. While he was gone, Ellie used her cell phone to call the school. Once the automated system picked up, she tapped in her supervisor’s extension, left a voice mail message and then left another message for her principal, telling both her colleagues that she would not be at parent conferences tonight after all.
As she finished, the doctor returned and handed her an envelope. “Give this to the emergency-room physician and be sure to have Dr. Marks paged. He’s expecting your mother. He’s an excellent cardiologist, and I’m certain he’ll be able to help her.”
Ellie tucked the envelope into her purse and helped her mother to her feet. When she looked into her mother’s eyes, she was surprised to see the same fear that was making her own heart beat a little faster. Apparently, despite her show of bravado, her mother was not quite as confident she had the flu as she had let on. “Everything is going to be fine,” Ellie whispered, and prayed she was right.
Life was good. Life was grand. Especially when life was filled with one of God’s finest blessings: chocolate!
Humming softly, Charlene Butler tied a bright pink bow on the gift package she planned to deliver tonight after closing her shop and heading out to the highway for her forty-mile ride home to Grand Mills, a small rural community in the Jersey Pinelands.
Inside the gingham-lined wicker basket, she had tucked all sorts of the chocolate specialties that had made Sweet Stuff one of the most popular stores on Welles Avenue, as well as the very center of Charlene’s lifelong dream to own a candy store.
Double-dipped, dark-chocolate-covered pretzels sprinkled heavily with pink jimmies, chocolate-raspberry fudge, chocolate-dipped strawberries and milk-chocolate-covered cherries were favorites she included in all the gift-basket orders she received for new mothers of baby girls, and this basket was no exception.
Although this basket had not been ordered at all. It was going to be a surprise gift from Charlene to Melanie Arbor, a member of her congregation whose adoption of two-year-old Kelsey had been finalized this morning.
When Charlene heard the shop door open, she stepped away from the worktable in the rear of the shop, walked into the main room and grinned as she navigated around one of the glass display cases filled with chocolates. “Aunt Dorothy! This is a surprise. I thought you were going on a bus trip today.”
“I did. Just got back. I thought you were supposed to close at five o’clock. It’s nearly six. You probably haven’t had dinner yet, either, and you have a long ride home,” she admonished gently as she stopped in front of the hutch that displayed a wide variety of vintage-era candy. “Makes a girl worry, you know.”
Charlene looked at her aunt, a girlish eighty-one-year-old spinster, and pouted. “I thought we had an agreement. You weren’t going to worry about me commuting to Welleswood, and I wasn’t going to worry about you living all alone,” she teased. Although her aunt’s dark gray hair was neatly permed and she wore her trademark scent, Tabu, Charlene did notice that the elephant pin on the collar of her aunt’s coat had lost several rhinestones. There was also a dark stain on one of her sleeves, which was unusual, since her aunt was usually very fastidious about her appearance.
Aunt Dorothy’s hazel eyes twinkled behind her glasses, but since the lenses were a bit smudged, it was questionable how much good the glasses did to improve her vision. “You’ll get no argument from me there. As a matter of fact, I was hoping you were still here. Annie Parker was on the trip. You remember Annie, don’t you? We worked together at the factory. Started the same day and retired the same day, as a matter of fact.”
“Sure I do. She lives at the Towers, doesn’t she?” Charlene asked, referring to the senior-citizen’s high-rise just down the avenue at the other end of town.
Aunt Dorothy nodded and started to help Charlene straighten the display of old-fashioned candy and gum, all in total disorder thanks to the numerous children who had stopped in after school today. “She had to give up the family home after Philip died a few years back. But to get to my point, she’s feeling a bit low. Today’s her daughter’s birthday. Jill would have been fifty-five, if she hadn’t been killed in that awful car accident two years ago. I would have forgotten all about it if I hadn’t been on the trip with Annie today. I feel terrible about forgetting. I should have done something extra nice for Annie to make today easier for her.”
Charlene cocked her head. “Something extra nice?”
“Maybe a gift basket. Just a little one. I know it’s late and you need to be getting home and you don’t really have any baskets made up because you like to personalize each one, but—”
“I’ve got one. I mean, I just finished making up a gift basket. You can take that one.”
Aunt Dorothy’s eyes lit with surprise. “I can? You wouldn’t mind?”
“Wait right here,” Charlene instructed. Within moments, she returned with the gift basket she’d made for Melanie, along with a white shopping bag. “How’s this?” she asked, and held the basket up for her aunt’s approval.
“It’s perfect, of course, but didn’t you make that up for someone else?”
“I was going to surprise Melanie Arbor on my way home, but I have time to make another. It’s Daniel’s bowling night. He won’t be home until late,” Charlene explained. She was more relieved than disappointed to have time for herself on her husband’s night out. Whether she spent that time at home or here in the shop mattered little. She set the gift basket into the shopping bag, handed it over and wrapped her hands around her aunt’s. “Here. My treat. Take this to Annie and tell her my thoughts and prayers are with her today, too.”
When Aunt Dorothy looked up, her eyes were moist with tears. “Thank you, Charlene. You might not be much of a businesswoman, since you wind up giving away almost as much candy as you sell, but you are a very precious woman. You know that, don’t you?”
Charlene swallowed hard and smiled. “It’s a family tradition. Makes a girl worry, you know, about being as good as her role model.”
Chuckling, Aunt Dorothy tiptoed up a bit to kiss Charlene’s cheek. “You’re twice as good as I am, which you’d know for sure if you ever found out some of my secrets. Which I’m hoping you won’t,” she teased. “I’m heading across the street to pick up some supper for me and Annie. Do you want me to get something for you to eat on the ride home?”
“Thanks, but I have half a sandwich left over from lunch. I can drive you to Annie’s if you like,” she offered.
“You need to get yourself home. Somebody’s bound to be at The Diner who can drive me. If not, I’ll call a cab,” her aunt insisted. “I’ll stop by and see you tomorrow. I’ll get up early and make some of those caramel brownies you like so much,” she added before heading to the door.
Charlene followed her aunt, locked up behind her and watched the elderly woman cross the street. Aunt Dorothy did not seem to have her usual bounce to her step, but after such a long day,
