Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

That night seemed unusually cold. If Grim Marie had friends, they could have come to stay with her while she worried and fretted over Aleta’s disappearance. They would have discussed how the thermos came out of her pack. Was it torn open? Did she open it herself? Was she perhaps willing to share the soup, which meant that perhaps the person was kindly? Was this just a misunderstanding? Perhaps she took the wrong bus. Or got off and wandered away to something a little more exciting than a sick grandmother. Maybe there was a boy.

Marie desperately, desperately hoped there was a boy.

The friends she didn’t have would have surrounded her and offered their assurances.

“It’ll be fine,” they would have said. “She’ll come home. Oh, how you’ll tan her hide when she does!”

But there were no friends. Nobody to help and comfort, guide and muse. Nobody to tuck Marie in when it became too much. Nobody to brush her hair and make sure she took something to calm her nerves. Nobody to stand in the doorway after she went to bed, or to discuss the situations in low voices around the table.

There was only her mother, her dear, sick, dying mother, who didn’t know that her only grandchild had disappeared while bringing her a basket of goodies. And Marie, all alone, who was the woman who had sent her daughter off alone.