Old Stone Chapter 8

Author’s Notes: 

Chapters:
Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4
Chapter 5	Chapter 6	Chapter 7	Chapter 8 Available 2/3/24
Chapter 9 Available 2/10/24	Chapter 10 Available 2/17/24	Chapter 11 Available 2/24/24	Chapter 12 Available 3/2/24

The Characters:
Vera Rose (mama)	Erin Rose (17-year-old, daughter, and oldest sister)
Charlie Rose (14-year-old, daughter, and middle sister)	Kyree Rose (10-year-old, daughter, and youngest sister)
Tobin Lindor (an old friend of Vera’s)	Andrew Lindor (16-year-old, and Tobin’s son)
Wade Rose (daddy; deceased, seen in flashbacks)

I hope you enjoy the story…

Erin’s POV

In the next few weeks, something weird happened. It snowed and stuck to the ground. It’s a rare thing in our area, so we hoped it would stay awhile and get deep enough to play in. I could think of a few choice people in town who could use a snowball or two thrown their way.

When I told Mama this, she wagged a bony finger at me, and said, “You’re about as friendly as a bramble bush, Erin.”

I wanted to ask her where she thought I got such a temperament, but since I learned more about her and Daddy’s past, I didn’t have the snark in me where she was concerned. I still stood by the Fall Festival comment I made to Tobin Lindor’s son, Andy. I’d told him Mama’s horns were holding up her halo.

That was every bit as true now as it was then, but I stopped saying it out loud.

See, Mama went through a lot of things I never knew about. It pained my heart bad to know my daddy hadn’t been as kind to her as he should’ve been. And I was ashamed I’d always taken his part in things. Now I knew better, so I had to do better.

In my heart, it felt like I wanted to have a long talk with Mama. After all, I was older now, almost eighteen. I couldn’t imagine not clearing the air before I left for college.

The fact was, she scared me, always had. She never mistreated me exactly, it was more like her demeanor wasn’t approachable. But then, was mine? She’d never talked to me either about anything deep or important.

Anyway, it got me to wondering what I should change in myself so I didn’t come off the same way as her. I hadn’t any friends, but I wanted one desperately. At the same time, I didn’t think that would happen here because everyone here knew me my entire life. It’s hard to change, but I figure it’s even harder to change other people’s opinions about you.

That’s why college was important.

“Erin, the water’s boiling,” Mama said, bringing my thoughts back to the present.

We were in the kitchen making preserves. Well, I was making preserves. Charlie was supposed to be helping me, but she was off in daydreamland, too. Kyree was no help at all. Instead of assisting us, she just kept eating the berries.

Watching Mama out of the corner of my eye, I’d been wondering why she wasn’t wearing her hair up like she normally did. She was making deep-dish cobblers, and her mind was focused on that one hundred percent. Which gave me a chance to catch brief glimpses of her now and again.

Did she look younger?

Dare I say it? Did she look happy?

I turned back to my pot on the burner as I considered this change in her. It hadn’t happened overnight, I decided. No, since dating Mr. Lindor, it had been a gradual change. So gradually, I was only now just noticing it.

“Kyree,” I said, “I need more sugar.”

“What’s the magic word?” she brightly asked as she shoved another handful of berries into her mouth.

Waving a wooden spoon at her, I said, “The magic word is now!”

She squealed as my spoon nearly bonked her in the nose, and she ran off to the old cupboard to get my sugar.

“Rude,” Charlie muttered as she cleaned off the last shelf with a wet rag.

“What’s rude is you daydreaming instead of getting those shelves ready.”

“You’re in a mood,” she said, dropping the dirty rag into the soapy bucket and standing back up. “The shelves are all set, mama wasp.”

Mama wasp, she’d called me. Just because I didn’t have time for their foolishness, it didn’t make me mean.

Charlie was facing me now, and guilt closed my throat. Wasn’t I being the same way as Mama? Hadn’t I criticized her all my life for acting that way?

Quit being so prickly, I said to myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said as best I could. “What were you daydreaming about? You looked miles away.”

But she didn’t trust me. Her eyes narrowed as if what I’d asked was a trick question.

“It’s wonderful, but none of your business,” she said with a glare aimed right at me.

And I knew I deserved her ire.

Throughout the entire conversation with my younger sisters, Mama kept stirring away at the cobbler batter, adding a little of this and that as she ignored us.

Mama could always tune us right out. The house might be burning down, but she’d just keep on doing what she was doing.

“Mama, I want your cobbler recipe,” Charlie said as she brought over the rest of the mason jars, setting them down on the table with a thud because the crate was heavy.

I wanted to laugh at her request. Mama didn’t follow any recipes, and she never tasted anything either. She could tell by smell alone what something needed. She also didn’t measure things. Somehow, everything she made turned out better than anything anyone else could ever do.

Her ability was something I was proud of her for, but at the same time, I knew I could never reproduce any of it and have it taste so heavenly.

“Someone’s at the door!” Kyree announced with another squeal. “Maybe it’s Mr. Lindor!”

Mama smiled slightly as she said, “Well, maybe you’d better let whoever it is in before they freeze to death.”

“Right!”

Kyree ran the few feet to the back door and in came Andy Lindor, Tobin’s son.

“Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

“Hello there, Andy,” Mama drawled with her raspy voice. “C’mon in and have a seat at the table. I’ll get you something warm to drink and a bite to eat.”

He smiled at her, and I wondered again about Mama. She seemed so at ease around Andy, and he with her.

“No, thank you, Vera,” he said. “I’ve got to go to town. There are errands to run. Dad just asked me to stop by and see if you need anything.”

There he was with that funny accent. I figured what he said was he had to go to town, but to my ears, it sounded like he said, “Godda goada town.”

Mama smiled at us girls. She smiled! And she asked in her most tender and polite voice, “Ladies, do we need anything?”

The three of us stared at her for a minute before we could even answer her. Then Charlie and Kyree looked at me. I reckon they thought since I was the oldest, I should be the one to respond.

“Uh… nothing from the grocer’s, but there are some books at the library that came in for me.”

Mama’s smile widened a little, and she said, “Well, you go along with Andy to town and get them. When you get back, I’ll give you both some nice deep-dish cobbler and hot cider.”

That’s when I knew I’d stepped into one of those science fiction books Charlie was always telling me about. You know, where there’s another timeline or another world that mirrors our own? Yeah, there was definitely no way this was my mama speaking.

I was still wondering what dimension I was in as I got my boots, snow pants, extra sweaters, coat, gloves, and hat on. As we walked, the snow crunched under my boots, and I stuck my tongue out to catch some snowflakes.

We wound around the cow pen and chicken coup, and when Mootilda the cow saw me, she came to where I was by the fence. I rubbed her face with my gloved hands, cooing softly to her.

“Now you get back in that pen and hunker down in there, okay? I don’t want you getting too cold, girl.”

It was clear by the way Andy stood he wasn’t too familiar with farm animals. He waited patiently, though, with his bare hands in his pockets. He looked so casual in his open jacket and cowboy hat like he wasn’t cold at all.

“Would you like to pet her?”

“Uh, no. No thanks.”

I smiled at the cow, my heart warmed with the love I felt for her.

“What’s her name?”

Snuggling my face next to hers, she licked my cheek. “Mootilda.”

His jaw dropped for a second, then he started laughing. “Mootilda?” It sounded more like an exclamation than a question.

“Charlie named her. She’s the sweetest gal you’ll ever meet. People don’t realize that cows are a lot like dogs. They’ll play with a ball on the pasture, and she likes to be petted and snuggled with.”

He didn’t stick his nose up in the air, but I still got that impression because he said, “So, are you gonna eat her?”

“Heavens, no!” I said, covering Mootilda’s ears with my gloved hands so she wouldn’t hear. “The first rule on the farm is, you don’t make friends with the food. You really are a city boy, aren’t you?”

For once, he seemed dumbfounded without a word to say.

And I was glad.

Once in town, as we rounded the corner and came to the grocer’s door, the pharmacist, Dr. Petty, rushed out, nearly running into us.

With her typical friendly smile, she explained, “Mrs. Rogers paid and forgot her debit card again! Did you see her, Erin?”

As I shook my head, Andy nodded toward a gray-haired lady, getting into a souped-up powder-blue convertible with its roof up.

“That her?” he asked, his voice steady and calm.

“Yes! Thank you!” As she ran toward the car, waving the debit card wildly in the air, she slipped and slid in the snow, nearly falling, with her chunky-heeled shoes. All the while, she shouted, “Mrs. Rogers wait! Mrs. Roooooooooogggers!”

Andy thought this was the funniest thing as he laughed. “This town is hilarious!” he declared.

“I thought you said people know you here and think you look just like your dad, but younger?”

He nodded as he held the door open for me. “His close friends do. Most people here don’t know me at all, though. I haven’t visited that much. Mostly, Dad comes to see me when he’s in Ann Arbor.”

“That must have been hard.”

I trailed along behind him as he gathered up the few grocery items he needed.

“Not, really,” he said. “I mean, he didn’t start living here permanently until last Spring. Before that, he traveled with work, and came to Ann Arbor a lot.”

He paid for the items and asked the clerk to have them delivered since it was too much to carry back with us. Then we picked up my books at the library, which he politely carried for me. When we stepped outside, he discreetly pointed at Mr. Nash, who was reading a book on his lunch break. Outside. In the snow.

“He must be crazy!” I laughed as we walked away from the store. “It’s freezing out.”

Andy snorted and said, “It’s not that cold, Erin. I mean, it’s really not.”

I stopped in my tracks and pointed at a double rainbow. I’d never seen one before. Did it mean anything? My heart wanted to be foolish and think so. Did I dare let it, though?

“Wow,” Andy said under his breath. “That is so cool.”

“Sure is.”

Crossing the empty street, we cut through the park that was at the town’s center.

“I know! Let’s build a snowman!”

Andy laughed a little, waving his arms around us. “That’d be great if we had enough snow.”

“There’s enough snow!”

He shook his head. “Nope. And it’s too fluffy anyways. You need a good packing snow for that.”

“We could…” my voice trailed off as I thought, “…make snow angels!”

“Noooo, not enough snow! You need a deeper snow for that.”

“Snowball fight?”

“You’re determined to play out here, aren’t you?”

I laughed for the first time in I don’t know when, and that got him laughing, too.

“We never get snow, so I just wanted to do something.”

Bending down, I scooped some snow into my gloves, only to realize he was right. I could see the pavement and the snow wasn’t packing into a snowball like I thought it would.

“See?” he asked with another laugh.

I’d see how good-natured he could be! Running right up to him, I grabbed the front of his coat and sweatshirt, then I brushed off my gloves, the little bit of snow on them feathering onto his skin.

“Hey, whoa!”

He jumped but the smile never left his face. He used a bare hand to reach up inside his coat and sweatshirt, then brushed the wisps of melting snow off of his skin.

“You’re a brat,” he joked.

I smiled from ear to ear. “You’re not the first to say that.”

“I’m not surprised.”

That’s when we turned toward my house and started walking that way.

“I want to go to college in the coldest climate I can find,” I declared.

“If you really want to play in the snow, you should visit where I live. There are some great colleges in Ann Arbor, too.”

I stood still as his words hit me with full force. Of course! I could go to college in Ann Arbor. If my scholarship came through, anyway. I was a straight-A student, so I was counting on that.

I thought Andy must have misread my expression because he hastily added, “I mean to invite you like a brother, that’s all.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Let’s go back to my house instead. Then I can grab Dad’s car and drive you home.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so we walked in an awkward silence the rest of the way home.

Tobin Lindor met us at the door.

“I saw you two walking up the drive. This is a pleasant surprise, Erin.”

Instead of smiling or saying something nice back to him, I just stood there like a bump on a log. Nothing could have felt worse, I decided.

“We’re stopping here so I can drive her the rest of the way home. She’s not used to these temperatures.”

Then, I saw Andy wink at Tobin like he knew his dad would think that my sensitivity to the cold was the funniest thing on the planet.

“I don’t need a ride,” I said, more loudly than I meant to. But I could feel the peevishness boiling in my blood by that point.

“I’m just gonna get a dry coat on,” Andy said, ignoring me completely.

Tobin turned toward me. “Why don’t you take those wet things off? I’ve got a fire going and I will put your gloves and hat and everything in front of it to dry for a while.

Begrudgingly, I removed my boots, snow pants, extra sweaters, coat, gloves, and hat… well, maybe not in that order, and I helped Mr. Lindor lay them all out on the large hearth in his living room. The same room where my daddy’s present to my mama was. You know, the room dividing screen with the fancy ladies on it.

He motioned for me to sit, and he seemed just as awkward as I felt. It occurred to me then that he’d never had the opportunity to engage with my more pleasant side… if there was one.

I sighed as I sat down.

And I couldn’t help but stare between the fancy ladies on the screen and his toupée. I’d never been a big fan of his little wig.

All in all, though, he was pretty handsome, I decided. Mama could have done a lot worse.

“We never got off to a good start, did we, Erin?”

His honesty shocked me, and I looked frankly into his eyes.

Mama had always said my daddy was all hat and no cattle. What she meant was that he didn’t work much and boasted a lot. On the other hand, from what I’d seen, Mr. Lindor wasn’t boastful at all. And it was my impression he had a lot he could brag about!

But he didn’t. So, even though he seemed to have a lot more than he could ever say grace over, he didn’t act that way. He wasn’t haughty, and he didn’t dress any different than anyone else around these parts. He grew up here, and I suspected he had a good upbringing, too.

And his eyes and expression were really nice.

He was really nice.

Suddenly, I understood what Mama saw in him. My heart ached at all the times I’d been the one who was mean and haughty.

So, I spoke to him the only way I knew how, but I toned it down so I could sound nice, like him.

I began with, “Mr. Lindor, I owe you an apology…”

Extra Photo:

Early in the morning, before the sun came up and the snow started, a deer went leaping through!

And a Blooper:

Now, that’s just awkward. lol

Special thanks to Bee (Stories by Bee / Poses by Bee) for editing this story.

Thank you so much for reading, liking, lurking, and commenting! I hope you have a terrific weekend!


Credits:
Lots: You can purchase Grandpa’s Grove from EA for 1,710 SimPoints HERE, Tobin Lindor’s house is a lot already in Hidden Springs.
World: You can purchase Hidden Springs from EA for $19.99 HERE
Premium Content: The Punjab Partition (from the Dreams of India – 1,550 SimPoints – set) can be purchased for 28 SimPoints HERE.
Custom Content/Mods: Please click here to see a full list of CC & Mods that I use in every chapter: Credits

The Sims games © EA, created by Maxis.





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