Sadie-In-Waiting Read Online Free Page A

on sticks, clomping down the street in shoes that sound like they got bottle caps stuck to the soles.” He brandished his hat in the air, caught up in the pure joy of the image he’d created. “And all the while that sweet pixie of a gal walking alongside carrying a boom box bigger than she is, blaring music so loud and distorted she might as well be hauling along a trash compactor in a rusty wagon.”
    If he hadn’t just described the ragtag troop to a tee, Sadie might have had a bit more conviction when she jerked her chin up, crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes and said, “Fine. You want to be in the parade with the rest of the little children? I’ll arrange with Mary Tate for you to march with them.”
    He stood at last, his smile lighting all the way to his eyes, and asked, “You think I won’t do it?”
    “Daddy, I don’t think there’s anything you won’t do.” She dropped her arms to her sides, turned toward the front door, then paused. She should probably just let it go but…“What I don’t understand is why. Why are you the way you are?”
    His hand flattened warm and soothing against the small of her back. “Sadie, honey, I could ask you the same question.”
    “Maybe you should ask yourself that. Doesn’t it say in Proverbs, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go…’”
    “‘And when he is grown he will not depart from it.’”
    “Old.”
    “What?” His faded plaid shirt rasped against the sleeve of her shapeless denim dress.
    “When he is old ,” she corrected. “Not when he is grown . The verse says, ‘When he is old he will not depart from it.’”
    “Well, maybe that’s my problem, then.” He pulled her close to his side, his cheek to hers, and took her hand in his. “I grew, but I never have let myself get old.”
    “You mean you’re still very childish?” she muttered.
    “Childlike.” He kissed her cheek and drew away, his hand still clinging to hers. “Filled with joy. I thought…I most surely did hope…that I had done my very best to train you up that way, Sadie-girl. To always be a child of joy. But these days when I look into those world-weary eyes of yours…”
    “I know, Daddy.” She gave his rough fingers a squeeze. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”
    It wasn’t really a lie. She was tired. But that did not tell the whole story, and she could see her daddy knew it.
    “Sadie, honey, you can’t go on like this.”
    “Don’t start, Daddy.”
    “ Why not? Someone has to start, Sadie. Whatever you’re doing isn’t working—surely you can see that? If you won’t do it for yourself, someone has to start—start talking the truth, start looking at things in a new light, start reaching out.”
    “Thank you, Daddy.” She touched his cheek, shut her eyes a moment and drew in the damp aroma of fresh pastry from the Not By Bread Alone Bakery. “But no. No, thank you.”
    “But, sweetheart, I wonder…maybe there’s something I can do to help.”
    She pulled her shoulders up, opened her eyes and forced a smile. “What will help right now is to get you out of here before Deborah pokes her nose out that door and offers to toss us both out on our you-know-whats.”
    “Our ears?”
    She looped her arm through his. “Somewhere decidedly south of our ears, Daddy.”
    “Oh, then we’d better scoot.” He pushed the front door open. “If I hit that unforgiving pavement anywhere but my hard old head, I might just suffer an injury.”
    “Then as often as folks threaten to toss you out of places, maybe you should invest in some iron-lined britches for protection.”
    “Iron britches. Oh, I do like that notion. Imagine the epidemic of throbbing toes when I tell all them around town who say I need a swift kick in the pants, ‘Go right ahead and give it all you got!’”
    The bright daylight made her squint and the picture of her father getting the last laugh on his critics made her wince.
    “Now, that’s what I like to see.” He swiped his knuckle