Soulmates Read Online Free Page A

time. I don’t know about all of you, but I’m sick to death of hosting parties here and never getting a reciprocal invitation.”
    “Not to mention they’ve barely acknowledged Marcus’ birth. Now that ticks me off,” Nelda said, bristling.
    “Noni I really don’t care about it. I’m used to it after no one sent me a card after Megan was born.”
    “People have no manners,” Bernice said. “It’s like they’ve forgotten how to say thank you.” The women looked at Bernice and sadly nodded their heads. No one said it out loud, but they were all thinking; things had changed since Jack died. They would have been deluged with well wishes from all of his friends and business associates.
    “When you graduated from high school, did you realize we opened a bank account just to keep track of the checks you received?” Pam said. “I’ve got a storage container in the attic of greeting cards Daddy’s friends sent you.”
    “Someday when we don’t have anything better to do, let’s dig that out,” Bernice said and they agreed.
    “Anyway, I have to send all those damn gifts back now. How many times did we have to say no gifts ? Or write no gifts, please ? I should make Jason do it, but we all know how reliable he is.”
    “At least you had fun over the past year,” Nelda said.
     
    ***
     
    Life at the beach certainly wasn’t static that year with Pam rarely home on the weekends, spending more time antiquing and flea marketing with Jason. Bernice and Annabelle played cards while Nelda or former-mother-in-law Gladys spent several days a week at Lisa’s house, helping with her brood. Nanny Daniela had been with Lisa and Dan for a year already. But with two infants, they really needed a third pair of hands and Dan liked Nelda around more than Gladys. She was the only one in the family who understood his special brand of sarcasm.
    Gearing up to fight Cara’s parole; in less than a week, she’d be eligible, and with eligibility, they feared that she’d demand visitation or worse, custody of baby Dan. Lisa’s attorney was laying the groundwork for Lisa to adopt Dan Junior and it looked promising as long as Cara finished out the fifteen-year sentence for assaulting Dan Senior with a frying pan.
    With four children to care for Lisa was barely hanging on. Nursing both babies, she couldn’t drink. But the lure of a cocktail every day at lunch was becoming almost impossible to ignore. Finally, in a fit of righteous indignation, she told Dan she didn’t want alcohol in the house.
    “Why? I rarely take a drink,” he argued.
    “Yes, but lately it’s all I think of. If I weren't so busy, I’d go to AA.” Dan scratched his head, worried about the deeper meaning of what his wife was trying to say, not wanting to take it lightly but, on the other hand, placing too much importance on something that hadn’t happened yet didn’t seem wise.
    “You need a break,” he said. “Your grandmother is here with the nanny. Take off. Go shopping, get a massage, join a club. Do something for yourself.” None of that appealed to her though. Never a joiner, Lisa was a stay at home even as a teenager. Secretly, she knew the problem was her marriage to Dan, how it had damaged her relationship with Pam. Essentially, she was in an unhappy marriage and rather than face it squarely, that her husband had been unfaithful, she was trying to move on without dealing with it. Needing to find a way to forgive him and stay married to Dan now that she knew what he was capable of, was taking more energy than she had. Lisa felt like they were always on the brink of some disaster and was afraid the anxiety it produced would eventually hurt her children by making them feel insecure.
    The underlying fear was she didn’t want to end up like her mother, ignoring the things that bothered her, keeping the façade of tranquility when she was seething under the surface. Talking herself into being in a good mood was easy enough; the little children were