Five Brides Read Online Free Page A

boots, which set the chair to rocking as he faced forward again. “Whatcha think you want to do once you get to Chicago, Evie-girl?”
    Evelyn allowed her imagination to take flight. “I want to get an apartment— not live in a boardinghouse—and I want to get a job in a big company. I want to get dressed up every day to go work in one of those tall buildings downtown in the Loop.”
    “The what?” He peered at her again.
    “The Loop. It’s like the business area of Chicago.” Evelyn drew an imaginary circle in the air. “It’s kind of round so they call it the Loop.”
    “Do you know where you’ll live?”
    “Joanie is taking care of that for me.” At least she hoped so.
    “What about money?”
    “I’ve got some saved from my job at Mrs. Bryant’s Kitchen.”
    Daddy remained silent for a moment. “When do you figure on going?”
    Evelyn raised her brow. “Soon?”
    For a few moments more, they swung and rocked in silence. “Tell you what let’s do,” her father finally said. “Give it a month.”
    “Daddy—” The air in Evelyn’s lungs rushed out and hung in the air between them like an old sheet on the line. “Then you’ll say it’s too close to Thanksgiving . . .”
    But her father’s eyes held firm, locking with hers as best they could in the dark night. “Listen to me now.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “One month. If you still feel like you want to go, I’ll give you the money you’ll need to get set up and put you on the train myself.” He pointed the stem of his pipe in her direction. “Not a word to your mama, now. We don’t need to go borrowing no trouble.”
    Evelyn’s heart raced, but she managed to stay calm. “Yes, sir.”Then she smiled so wide her cheeks hurt. She hoped her father didn’t see. “I mean, no, sir.”
    “Chicago, Illinois,” he said again, whispering the city’s name like a prayer. “You always were one step ahead of us here, sugar bear. I ’spect you’ll do all right amongst those city people. Still . . .” He turned the pipe upside down and knocked the tobacco into his calloused hand. “If you ever want to come back, this is always home.”

Highland Park, Illinois
    Betty Estes sat with her legs crossed at the ankles as she’d been both taught and scolded to do, whether by her mother or by the nuns or during her time at finishing school. She stared down the long linen-draped dining room table where her father sat regally at the head, sliding his spoon into the broth that had been served as their first course.
    “So, work is going well?” he asked her, peering beneath thick brows.
    Betty suppressed the urge to run, knowing full well where this conversation was headed. The same place as always. She glanced at her mother, sitting at the other end. While Mother reminded her of an older Lauren Bacall, Father looked more like Ernest Hemingway, leaving Betty to feel nothing short of gratitude that she’d grown into more of her mother’s features.
    She looked again at her father as she glided her own soup spoon through dark broth and inhaled the fragrance of beef and onion. “It’s going very well, actually, Father.”
    “I still don’t understand—”
    “Harrison, please,” Chloe Estes said as she nestled her spoonbetween the bone china bowl and matching plate beneath it. She picked up a tiny silver dinner bell and rang it, summoning Adela to bring the next course and save them all.
    The rotund colored woman with silver streaks in her hair, the one who had cared for the family as though they were her own since as far back as Betty could remember, entered through the swinging door separating the butler’s pantry from the dining room. She carried an ornate silver tray and, as was her custom, went immediately to Chloe. “Miz Estes, you haven’t hardly touched your soup,” she scolded. “Was it all right?”
    Betty detected concern in Adela’s voice, though she couldn’t tell whether it was about the soup or Betty’s mother’s