<< Go Back

Broken

By Peggy Blann Phifer

Order Now!

Rozene Gentry stood at her bedroom window as the sun began its journey west to sink out of sight behind the Sweetriver Mountain Range. She checked her watch. Almost 8:30. Soon she’d have to return to the restaurant and close up for the night.

When does the pain end?

Fifteen months ago her husband had complained about not feeling well and left their restaurant to go home and rest. Rozene stayed to finish up the day. When she got home, she found him.

Massive heart attack, they said.

Why hadn’t she followed him? Checked up on him? She knew his family background of heart disease. Knew the symptoms to look for. Yet she’d missed them.
Once again, guilt assailed her as she made her way back to the restaurant. The last rays of the sunset vanished. Dusk descended.

As she reached for the door it opened outward and Homer and Celia Evers exited.
Rozene stepped back, hand to her throat. “Oh, goodness, you startled me.”
“Sorry, Rozie, we didn’t see you.”

“It’s okay. I was a bit preoccupied. Rozene glanced overhead. “I hadn’t even noticed that Ramona had already turned off the outside lights.”

Homer chuckled. “And she’s got that vacuum cleaner hot on our heels.”
He slipped an arm around his wife and guided her toward their car. “Come on, Celia, let’s get out of here so Rozie can lock up and go home.”

After saying their good-byes, Rozene entered and closed thedoor behind her, shaking her head at the nickname she’d been given way back in Kindergarten. The teacher had asked how to pronounce her name.

“It’s said like rose, like the flower. Rose-een,” she had answered. Her little classmates had only picked up on the ee part and she’d been Rozie to almost everyone ever since. But she still though of herself as Rozene, the name given to her by her Cherokee grandmother Chenoa, who’d raised her from infancy.

The whine of the vacuum cleaner died off as Rozene stepped behind the hostess desk to empty the cash register. A moment later the stocky figure of Ramona Lopez emerged through the archway of the hall leading to the restrooms.
“Good night, Mrs. Gentry.”

“Good night, Ramona. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Time to lock up. Or maybe she’d lock it up for good. She’d lost her heart for the business because the heart of the business had left her. Ross Gentry, a Sullivan rancher. A good man. Dependable.

Except that one time thirty years ago.

Order Now!

<< Go Back