A Cup of Silver Linings (Dove Pond # 2) - Karen Hawkins Page 0,1

her nose.

Don’t stare. Ellen jerked her gaze away from Kristen, away from the dragon flag–draped casket, and instead focused on the trees in the distance. Ellen had to proceed carefully where her granddaughter was concerned, as they barely knew one another thanks to Julie and her stubbornness. But with some time and effort, Ellen was convinced she and Kristen would grow closer and finally have the relationship they should have had all along.

Kristen tilted her kazoo to a jauntier angle and finished “Macarena” to a boisterous round of applause.

Ellen bit back the urge to snap out, This is supposed to be a funeral! Although it would be almost impossible to tell by how these supposed mourners were dressed. Behind the safety of her dark sunglasses, she eyed the residents of Dove Pond, who wore a wide range of mismatched, garishly colored clothes, just as the handwritten funeral invitation had requested.

She flinched at the memory of that invitation. When she’d found it in her mailbox just three days ago, she’d thought it a horrible joke. Julie’s flowing script had adorned bright construction paper, breezily inviting her mother to “the funeral of all funerals, date TBA.” The invitation had requested that everyone wear bright colors, as Julie didn’t wish to leave the earth in a parade of dull black or gray. She’d also added that she wanted no weeping, as dying wasn’t really so hard “once one got over the surprise of it.”

It had been ten years since Ellen had heard from her daughter, who’d stormed out of Ellen’s world the same way she’d entered—screaming and red-faced, refusing to be held or told what to do. After their last argument, Julie had cut her mother from her and Kristen’s lives. Ellen had been horrified when Julie had refused to allow her to even see her granddaughter, saying she didn’t want Kristen’s mind “polluted” by Ellen’s “stuffy views.”

In those first few months, Ellen had reached out repeatedly, desperate to see her granddaughter, but her calls had gone unanswered. As the silent weeks expanded to even more silent months, Ellen had decided to give Julie some space, thinking her daughter would come around more quickly if she didn’t feel pressured. After that, Ellen had only called on birthdays and holidays… calls that had gone to voice mail so often that—as time wore on—she’d eventually stopped even that.

Which was why Ellen hadn’t taken the invitation to her daughter’s future funeral seriously. Ellen had never understood Julie’s sense of humor, so she’d just assumed it was some sort of cruel joke and had tossed the invitation into the closest trash can.

But then, the very next day, Kristen had called, crying. In between Kristen’s hiccupping sobs and broken words, Ellen had learned that Julie had died after a two-year fight with breast cancer.

The invitation was real, and Julie was gone.

Stunned, Ellen had numbly assured her granddaughter she’d be there as soon as possible and hung up. Time had slammed to a halt and for some reason, Ellen had found herself staring down at her feet. She’d been wearing a pair of blue Manolo Blahnik Decebalo pumps with gold trim, adorned with large crystal brooches. If she closed her eyes now, she could still see her long, narrow feet in those shoes while tears she didn’t even know she was crying fell onto the blue velvet, shimmering in the late-afternoon sun, brighter than the sparkling brooches.

She’d since thrown the shoes away because she couldn’t look at them without remembering what had happened next. She’d let out a moan like a wounded tiger and had dropped to her knees, desperately digging through the trash, looking for the invitation. When her fingers had closed over the discarded paper, her tears had turned into sobs, her pain tinged a bitter blue from the impersonal tone of the invitation. The truth hurt—that even while dying, Julie hadn’t bothered to reach out to her mother.

Ellen had sat on the floor surrounded by trash as she hugged the ridiculous piece of construction paper, weeping for the daughter she’d lost and for the relationship she’d always hoped for, but now knew she would never have.

Eventually Ellen had run out of tears. So she’d done as she always had whenever she faced a problem: she’d picked herself up, dried her tears, closed the door on her too-raw emotions, and made a list of things that needed to be done. She’d taken time off work and packed for her trip, pausing now and then to add to