Linny's Sweet Dream List Read Online Free Page A

beckoned her to follow and bustled down the hallway. “How are you coming with the move?”
    Linny’s voice was flat as she stepped into the living room. “Your last tenants were drunks. I just got rid of seventy-six bottles of alcohol. I’ve got my stuff in, but have got some cleaning up to do.”
    Her mother raised her eyes heavenward, and shook her head. “I know. Awful people. I was getting ready to evict them when they crept out in the middle of the night.”
    Dottie kept the blinds drawn when the weather was hot. As Linny’s eyes adjusted to the dim natural light, she took in the angel figurines, cut glass bowls, and God’s Blessings Inspirational Romance novels stacked on tables and chairs. She gave an involuntary shudder. These days, Mama couldn’t stop yard sale shopping. She was the clutter queen. When Linny was growing up, Dottie had been an a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place type of mom. The safe, comforting feeling she’d had about her childhood home had been replaced with an oppressive heaviness. Why did her mother live like this? She added to her mental to do list, Talk to Kate about whether Mama is getting crazy.
    â€œI have something for you.” As her mother dug through her bill-paying desk, Linny cleared away the Amy Grant CDs and perched on the edge of the couch. She recognized two new purchases—an elliptical machine that loomed in the center of the room, and a pink Barbie jeep big enough for a little girl to drive parked beside Dottie’s recliner. Why would she want either?
    â€œI see you went to more yard sales this weekend,” Linny said. Her mother glanced up, her glasses slipping down her nose, and shot her a look.
    Unwisely, Linny persisted. “You need all this stuff, Mama?”
    Dottie’s chin jutted out. “I use every bit of what I buy, Lavinia.”
    For once, Linny didn’t cringe at hearing her given name because she was too busy picturing her fifty-nine-year-old mother galloping along on the elliptical machine like the pony-tailed pitchman on the commercials. Chagrinned, she remembered that Dottie was helping her out of a major jam. She was the screw-up, not her mother. She swallowed. “I want to thank you again, Mama, for letting me stay in the trailer.”
    â€œI’m glad it was vacant.” She sniffed. “I know a mobile home is not as fancy a place as you’re used to, but it’ll be a handy spot for you to get back on your feet.”
    Linny felt a flash of hot anger at the Shark Brothers. Her mother didn’t know of her eviction and wouldn’t if Linny could help it. “Buck’s company owned that fancy house, Mama. It wasn’t really ours, so I had to move.” Slipping her finger under the rubber band on her wrist, Linny snapped it to Samba toward strength with the saber-toothed tiger.
    â€œAh. Buck.” Dottie looked like she’d taken a swallow of sour milk.
    Linny flushed. She hadn’t even told her mother she was dating Buck until after they were engaged. Linny had been too swept up in love, and afraid of her mother’s judgment. Dottie refused to go to Bermuda for their wedding. Later, when she’d finally spent time with Buck, she’d said to Linny, “My, he’s a charmer.” It wasn’t a compliment. When Dottie heard about the unseemly circumstances of Buck’s death, she’d muttered something about “lying down with the wrong horse” and “the pigs coming home to roost.” Although her mash-up of figures of speech usually made Linny smile, these hadn’t. Linny already felt foolish enough without having to hear Dottie’s I-told-you-sos.
    But today, thankfully, Dottie said no more. “You’re helping me too, Linny,” her mother reminded her as she rummaged. “The place is overdue for a spruce-up and I’m real grateful you said you’d take it on.” In a gentler