At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [2]
Repeated snowstorms had kept them housebound. Lindsay had tried to burn green wood in the fireplace and the resulting soot and black smoke had taken weeks to scrub off the wall. Lori, whose youthful enthusiasm was matched only by her good intentions, kept trying to improve everything. Noah spent most of his time with the animals and, when he was forced to stay inside with the others, seemed to go out of his way to be miserable. The housekeeper, Ida Mae, and Bridget stirred up a familiar feud about the division of household chores. Cici, who spent the winter recovering from a fall from the roof, couldn’t get to her workshop, and Lindsay’s studio was so cold that her paints froze in the tubes. To date, things were not exactly working out as they had planned.
But spring was here. They had survived. Somehow, the old house had become home for all of them, and in truth, none of the women would have traded their lives on Ladybug Farm for those of anyone else on the planet.
On most days, anyway.
“For the last time,” Cici told her daughter, not bothering to try to disguise the impatience in her voice, “we are not getting a satellite dish.”
“But for the low introductory price of $99 a month we can have 150 television channels plus high-speed Internet!” Lori flapped the sales brochure in front of her mother’s face.
Since Cici was on her hands and knees at the moment, scooping out a shovelful of ashes from the fireplace, her daughter’s gesture had the unfortunate result of sending a shower of white ash over the hearth, the floor, and Cici. Lori stepped back quickly, chagrined, and grabbed the broom. “What I mean is,” she went on, undeterred, “you know how Aunt Bridget is always running back and forth to the library. If we had high-speed Internet, think how much gas she’d save!”
It was generally agreed among those who knew them that Lori got her looks and her charm from her father, and her obstinacy and determination from her mother. Cici, with her long legs, athletic build, and thick, honey-colored hair—not to mention the thousands of freckles, made even more prominent by a year of outdoor work—bore little physical resemblance to the petite, copper-haired Lori. But when the two women’s eyes met in willful conviction over conflicting goals—which seemed to be the only kind of goals they had these days—they were mirror images of each other.
Cici glared at her daughter. “Do you know where they have really good high-speed Internet? At the University of Virginia dorms. Where, I believe we all agreed, you were supposed to be by now.”
Lori returned a hurt look that was noticeably lacking in sincerity. “It wasn’t my fault that my transcripts didn’t get here from UCLA in time for me to be accepted for the spring.”
“They didn’t get here in time because you didn’t send for them in time,” Cici pointed out. “And I don’t think I have to point out that a transfer acceptance is not the same as an enrollment.”
Lori said, “I thought we agreed it would be good for me to take some time to think about the direction I wanted my life to take.”
“And so you have.”
“I’m just not convinced college is the right place for me right now.”
“That makes one of us.”
“It would be a lot easier for me to research my options,” Lori pointed out single-mindedly, “if we had high-speed Internet.”
Cici bit back a reply that she knew would be a waste of breath. After what Lori had termed a “less than satisfactory experience” at UCLA, it had not seemed unreasonable for her to take the winter off while she completed the paperwork for the transfer to UVA. But as more and more weeks passed, Lori grew less interested in returning to college at all. And