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    Cold Comfort
    Cold Comfort
    Cold Comfort
    Ebook71 pages53 minutes

    Cold Comfort

    By Kathleen Gerard

    ()

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    About this ebook

    It’s Thanksgiving weekend and workaholic photojournalist Anna Maria “A.M.” LaRusa returns to Federal Hill, a small Italian-American enclave in Rhode Island, to spend a quiet holiday with her only remaining relative, her Aunt Minnie, a hip, 96-year-old who texts and has a blog. But when a blizzard Nor’easter threatens New England, there is a change in plans. As A.M. and her aunt prepare for the holiday and the storm, A.M. unexpectedly runs into a man she hasn’t seen in ten years—a man whom she still refers to as "the guy who broke my heart in college"—and her weekend and her life are suddenly upended. Stuck amid the snowy deep freeze that paralyzes the region, A.M. begins to wonder if her cold, wounded heart from an unrequited love will ever thaw.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUntreed Reads
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781611877212
    Cold Comfort
    Author

    Kathleen Gerard

    Kathleen Gerard writes across genres. Her work has been awarded and nominated for several literary prizes including The Saturday Evening Post "Great American Fiction" prize and The Mark Twain House Humor Prize. Kathleen's short prose and poetry have been widely published, anthologized and broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). Kathleen's woman-in-jeopardy novel IN TRANSIT won The New York Book Festival - "Best Romantic Fiction." To learn more about Kathleen and her work, visit: kathleengerard.blogspot.com

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      Book preview

      Cold Comfort - Kathleen Gerard

      AUTHOR

      Cold Comfort

      By Kathleen Gerard

      Copyright 2014 by Kathleen Gerard

      Cover Copyright 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing

      Cover Design by Ginny Glass

      The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

      Also by Kathleen Gerard and Untreed Reads Publishing

      How to Become a Bodyguard for Celine Dione’s Larynx

      In Transit

      Tangled

      Last Licks, in the Untreed Reads Anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry

      www.untreedreads.com

      COLD COMFORT

      By Kathleen Gerard

      One

      Be back in an hour, Aunt Minnie said, handing me a shopping list longer than my arm. I don’t want to be late for my appointment at the chiropodist.

      I didn’t know what a chiropodist was any more than I could read Aunt Minnie’s warbling scribble. The intensity of her penmanship—the shape and form of each carefully constructed letter, both upper and lower case—could be felt like Braille bleeding through the post-marked and addressed business-sized envelope. She’d cut it open length-wise in order to accommodate her long list of instructions. Frugality, even when it came to recycling uses for paper, was Minnie’s middle name.

      I can’t read this. What does this say? I asked, pointing to one of the many stops listed on the itinerary.

      Let me see. Aunt Minnie slipped on the pair of bifocal glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. She peered down at the list and spouted, "Okay, we’ve got the turkey, gizzards and hot and sweet saus-seige from Arturo the Butcher; potatoes and parsley, pinnolis and lemons from Dutchy at the veg-a-table stand; cannolis and strufuli from Palermo’s… With the cod, you tell Giacomo that I want four fill-its, as big as my hand, half-inch thick." She gestured at the length of her palm then held up her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate what she meant.

      "Fill-its? Do you mean fillets, as in fish fillets?"

      Yes, fill-its…fillets. She waved her hands in the air as if to brush off what she considered to be my ridiculous pronunciation. "No worries… Just tell Giacomo I sent you. He’ll know what to do. Now, you go. Andiamo."

      She pressed her rusty, folded up rolling shopping cart against my hip and practically pushed me down the concrete front stoop of her brownstone.

      Oh, what have I gotten myself into!

      A canopy of withering leaves clung to branches above me as that rusted shopping cart jiggled and shuddered. The wheels bumped loudly down each concrete step that led to the sidewalk.

      Okay, smile! she hollered.

      When I turned, there was my silver-haired aunt standing in the doorway. The mid-day November gloom was brightened by the faded yellow and blue flowers dotting her housedress. With her arms outstretched, her cane draped over her elbow, she snapped a picture of me with her Smartphone.

      Enthusiasm oozed through her tone as she said, I’m documenting our whole weekend together for my blog.

      "Since when do you have a blog?"

      Since I took a class at the Senior Center. You’re not the only creative one in this family, you know.

      Well, let me teach you how to use my camera?

      No. I don’t want to use that big complicated thing. Besides, no cameras for you this weekend—you promised. She wagged a finger at me to reinforce her point. You need a couple days of vacation from all that. And you need to live your life like a normal person for once.

      Normal? I let out a big, walloping guffaw. "And would you call a computer and Smartphone-savvy 96-year-old normal?"

      She smirked.

      Beneath a low mid-morning sky, cluttered with stubborn gray clouds, golden orange and red leaves from the tree-lined street sputtered down. They sent up a swooshing sound as a fierce gust of chilly fall wind scattered them across the pavement. I looked over my shoulder at Aunt Minnie who stood framed in the doorway, leaning on her cane.

      Burrrrrr! It’s cold out here, she said. Feels like snow.

      She bundled her ratty old cardigan sweater over her housecoat while I gathered my Polar fleece jacket around my neck to buffet against the chill. I blew warm air into my cupped hands.

      "What exactly is

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