At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [90]
Cici squeezed her knee. “He loves you, sweetheart. So do I. And I don’t ever want you to think you’re not good enough because you’re comparing yourself to someone else—even if that someone is me. Mothers have to pretend to be perfect, don’t you see that? If we didn’t, anarchy would rule the world. But most of the time we’re just doing the best we can, and trying to get better at it every day.”
Lori tried to smile. “It’s hard, when you don’t know where you fit in. Everyone else is good at something—Aunt Lindsay with her teaching and Aunt Bridget with her cooking and you building things and even the kid”—she jerked her head toward Noah—“at drawing. But me?” She shrugged. “All I’ve got is a bunch of dopey ideas.”
A note of motherly indignation tinged Cici’s voice. “You’re twenty years old! You have plenty of time to discover what it is you were meant to do in this world. And it doesn’t have to be just one thing, either. Leonardo da Vinci started out with nothing but a bunch of ‘dopey ideas,’ so did Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill and—and, well, Al Gore, for heaven’s sake! And look what they ended up contributing to the world!”
Lori slanted her an upwards grin. “The Internet?”
Cici put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight. “And please don’t ever let me hear you say again that you’ve made my life harder. You’ve made my life—and everyone else’s—richer by coming here. You’ve brought us adventure and inspiration and hope. You’ve reminded us how to think outside the box. You’ve made certain no two days are ever the same, and okay, so some of those days have been a little more exciting than we’d like, and maybe a little adventure goes a long way when you get to be our age, but . . .” She took Lori’s face in her hand and turned it toward her, regarding her seriously. “I am so glad you are here. And I’m sorry if I’ve tried to make you into something you’re not, or hold you up to a standard that doesn’t fit. You are a smart, imaginative, ambitious young woman, and I believe you can make your mark on the world with or without a college degree. Only you know what’s best for you. And whatever you choose, I’ll support you.”
Lori turned and wrapped her arms around her mother, hugging her fiercely. Cici returned the embrace until she felt tears stinging her eyes, and then she pushed away, swallowing the moisture in her throat, smoothing the damp curls away from Lori’s face. “Come on,” she said, “let’s give the others a hand.”
Noah was using a wide snow shovel to scrape debris out of the corners of the barn that Farley’s big plow had been unable to reach. Lori went behind him with the wheelbarrow, and when it was full, she carted it off to the trash pile where the women had taken over the digging of the trench. For almost an hour they worked in silence, then Lori observed in surprise, “Hey. There’s a stone floor under here. I never knew that. Let me see that shovel.”
Noah glared at her through bloodshot eyes and a face that was streaked with soot. He looked for a moment as though he would not comply and then, abruptly, handed it over.
“Did you tell your mom?” he demanded.
Lori scraped away a layer of dirt and ash from the floor, exposing another section of mortared stone. “Tell her what?”
“You know what.”
Lori looked up, regarding him frankly for a moment. “It’s not my job to tell her.”
His expression grew belligerent. “Nobody knows what started that fire.”
And Lori agreed mildly, “That’s right. Nobody does.”
“And nobody can prove a damn thing.”
The sound of the shovel raking over stone was the only reply as Lori cleared another four-foot section that was dusted with ash. And then the shovel struck something sharp sticking out of the ground. She thrust it back toward Noah and dropped to her knees, brushing the ground with her gloved hands until she uncovered a metal ring. “Hey, look at this. It’s like something they used to tie horses to.”
She tried to lift the ring, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again, straining her shoulders, to no avail.