The Turning Point Read Online Free

with Mom last night had me off my game. It wasn’t like me to forget.
    “Don’t worry about.” Nonna patted my arm. “Nothing to get your panties in a twist about.” She smiled widely.
    Nonna was beautiful. Her thick, long silver-white hair curled gently at the ends just enough to make the prettiest of women jealous, despite their age. It framed her heart-shaped face perfectly, giving depth to her olive complexion. But of Nonna’s features, it was her eyes that spoke the loudest (which was amazing, because Nonna was loud by nature). Her emerald eyes held so many stories.
    Pushing away from the table, Nonna grabbed my empty plate along with hers. “What’s eating you, Principessa ?” She walked our plates to the sink, rinsed them off, and added them to the dirty lot in the dishwasher.
    I watched, unable to do much else. A sick feeling pooled low in my belly like it had right before I took the MCAT. The only difference was that I wanted to take the MCAT. I didn’t want to see my dad.
    Ugh. I hate this.
    “My dad keeps calling. Mom wants me to go see him.”
    Nonna shut the dishwasher and turned around. “Hmm.”
    Hmm? That’s all the sage wisdom she could come up with?
    “Can I show you something?” Nonna asked finally.
    “What?”
    She started toward the living room, calling over her shoulder, “You coming?”
    Feeling like my veins pumped lead instead of blood, I sluggishly got to my feet and trailed in her wake. Down the hall, Nonna turned left, into her bedroom. I followed right behind and saw her standing on her tiptoes in front of the closet.
    “Nonna, what are you doing?”
    She craned her neck to look over her shoulder. “Don’t just stand there—get over here and help me.”
    Nonna’s neatly made bed took up most of her small room. I skirted around it, running my fingers over the sateen burgundy bedspread. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Nonna, I reached up and helped her pull down the spiral-bound notebook she was fingering. Of course, the one she wanted had to be at the bottom of a large stack of other, larger notebooks.
    “Just hold the top ones back while…uhh…,” she grunted. “While I yank.”
    Her small fingers hooked inside each end of the wire spiral. Not much taller than Nonna, I had to stand on my tiptoes, too. I put both my palms against the teetering stack, keeping them still while Nonna pulled the one she wanted free.
    “Almost…got…it…,” she groaned. “Uhh.” She blew out a breath and dropped back to the flats of her feet with the notebook in hand. “Got it.”
    I gave the disheveled notebook tower a shove to realign it and took a step backward. “Whatever it is you want to show me, it must be good.”
    Nonna patted the bed, beckoning me to sit beside her. “I haven’t looked at these for the better part of twenty years.”
    With her knobby, arthritic fingers, she flipped the cover over, revealing yellowing paper marked with black lines. “What’s that?” I asked, inching my butt closer to her. I stared at the paper…the sketches.
    “Back in the day I used to be a pretty decent artist. Before this, of course.” She held out her hand. “Damn arthritis.”
    “May I see?” I touched the side of the sketchbook and she passed it in my direction.
    On the page before me was a beautifully rendered charcoal sketch of my mother, a much younger version. I wanted to touch the lines that made up her face but feared I’d mar them, so I refrained. I admired with only my eyes. “Nonna, this is exquisite.” I looked up and met her eyes.
    “Your mamma was one of my favorite subjects, but not my ultimate favorite.” She rested her hand on mine, gently brushing my fingers away from the side of the notebook. “Let me show you.”
    With the book still perched on my lap, she paged through a few other drawings, mostly still-life sketches of flowers, until she stopped at an illustration of my mom and dad cradling a swaddled baby.
    Nonna touched the delicate lines of the