More Than Words Can Say Read Online Free Page A

all by myself. It’s so quiet at night, after everyone has gone home . . .”
    Then Lucy looked carefully around as if she were appraising her home, rather than admiring it. “Do you think that I should sell it now?” she asked Chelsea. “With Mother gone it seems so big, so empty . . .”
    Chelsea sighed and shook her head a little. Less than an hour ago, she had asked Allistaire Reynolds that very thing about Gram’s cottage. Death has an odd way of forcing us into making choices, she thought. She put a comforting arm around her mother’s shoulders.
    “I think that you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Chelsea answered. “There’ll be lots of time to consider that. And we’ll talk to Dad about it, too. He always knows what to do.”
    Lucy’s next effort to smile proved no more genuine than before. “I don’t suppose that I could ask you to stay with me for a few nights?” she said. “I could really use the company.”
    And just how do I answer that? Chelsea thought . Should I obey the secret wishes of my grandmother or the more immediate needs of my mother?
    It had long been Chelsea’s opinion that Lucy’s brittle and rather martyr-like personality was a result of never having had to work at a “real” job, among “real” people. As far as Chelsea was concerned, Lucy’s charities, black-tie balls, and bridge club didn’t count. Because of her late father’s wealth and Adam’s success, Lucy had never worked a day in her life. As Chelsea had grown into adulthood, she had come to suspect that it was precisely this insulation from the real world that had shaped her mother’s personality. Rather than produce a sense of superiority in Lucy, it seemed that the privileged isolation she had experienced her entire life had somehow created a sort of silent inferiority in her makeup. Lucy had always been a good person, Chelsea knew, but never a great mother. And because of that, it had been Adam to whom Chelsea had always been the closest. But she loved her mother, and she hated seeing her in so much pain.
    “I’ll tell you what,” Chelsea said. “I’ll stay with you for a few days, but then I have to leave town for a little while. Would that be okay?”
    Chelsea went on to explain her meeting with Allistaire and how she was going up to Lake Evergreen to view the property. To help cushion the blow of her leaving, she then fibbed a little and told Lucy that Allistaire thought it best if she went there soon. She didn’t like doing it, but she was trying to walk a fine line between helping her mother and obeying the wishes set forth in Brooke’s mysterious letter. When Chelsea finished, Lucy nodded.
    “Three or four days will be enough, I think,” Lucy answered. “I’ll probably be better after that. By then, I could probably use some time alone, anyway.”
    Sighing, Lucy wiped her eyes again. “Oh . . . by the way,” she said. “Mother wanted you to have something else.”
    “What is it?” Chelsea asked.
    Lucy walked shakily toward an end table, where she picked up an old black notebook. She walked back over to Chelsea and handed it to her.
    “It’s Mom’s recipe collection,” Lucy said. “You’re a far better cook than I, and she was always reminding me that it would be better off in your care. As was the case with so many things, she was right.”
    Chelsea looked at the old notebook. It was so fragile that it was practically falling apart, with an old rubber band around its middle holding it all together. Although she hadn’t seen it for years, she remembered it. Just as she had painted nearly every day of her life, Gram had cooked nearly every day of her life. Sloping ramps had been built in the kitchen so that she could wheel her chair onto them and work at the proper height. Chelsea had never read any of the recipes the notebook contained; the most she knew about them was that they were all supposedly of Brooke’s own devising.
    “Thank you, Mom,” Chelsea answered. “I’ll