THE GRUMP WHO DOESN’T BELONG NEXT DOOR BY EMILY DANA BOTROUS – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Emily Dana Botrous
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Lottie
Lost for words does not apply. Not to me. Not ever.
Except for right now.
I must have heard wrong. Must have.
“What did you say?” I need to know if I’m the problem here. Has my
hearing or mind gone a few decades too soon? Or is Doris delirious? Wait—
did she have a stroke, too?
Her look is one of great exasperation, not faulty neurons. “I said, it’s
time to call Camila’s son.”
Phewf. It’s not me, then. I heard right. So it’s Doris whose mind has
gone.
“By son, you mean the workaholic lawyer who hasn’t visited in five
years?”
Doris taps her chin where a misplaced white hair sprouts from her face,
feigning deep thought. “That one.”
“Doris, that’s Camila’s only son. Of course that one. But why on earth
should we call him?” Maybe it is my brain at fault here. I’m clearly not
computing.
Doris reaches a wrinkled, weathered, work-worn hand to touch the
equally wrinkled but less weathered hand that rests on the white sheet of the
nursing home bed. Camila. The sweetest next-door neighbor I could ask for.
Doris is my neighbor, too. But she’s not sweet. A cantankerous delight, yes.
But not sweet.
My stomach bottoms out as I gaze at Camila’s placid, sleep-slackened
face wreathed in white curls, nestled on a plump pillow.
“You don’t think she’ll make it?” Perish the thought. The doctor said
her stroke was mild. That she would only need a few weeks in the care
home before she could come back to the little blue house next to mine. Why
bother her can’t-be-bothered highfaluting attorney son? If he hasn’t deigned
to visit since Camila moved back to her hometown, I see no reason he’ll
come now.
“It’s what she would want.” Doris’s barely-there springy white
eyebrows rise with lofty superiority. “I know my sister.” She rummages in
her handbag, only to jab me with a scrap of paper. “Here. The first one is
Anthony’s cell phone. The other is his work. Call him when you get home.”
I make no move to accept the paper. I’m the helpful neighbor. But not
that helpful. “Why me? He’s your nephew.”
She pries open the jeans pocket below my hip—what happened to
personal space?—and shoves the paper inside. “Anthony and I—we don’t
see eye to eye.”
Imagine that.
“So you think a total stranger calling him up with the news that his
mother had a stroke is a better idea?”
“Precisely.” She reaches over to pat my cheek. “You always were too
smart for this town, Lottie. If anyone can handle Anthony, it’s you. Now, go
on. Shoo.” She’s pushing me toward the door into the shiny, sterile hallway,
and I have no choice but to let her. Her thin frame is so frail, I’m afraid I
might break one of her bones if I resist.
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