Right (49) By Littlewing1957
Roberta Twist moved around her spare but clean kitchen, wondering where she put the rosemary. She planned to bake a capon for dinner that night, and knew just how much Jack liked rosemary on his bird. Mrs. Twist had to take a seat when she thought about her son. She was delighted to see the change in him: no more gloomy moods, few silences. And she had to attribute his happiness to Ennis Del Mar. There was no other explanation. She hoped that Ennis would see fit to stay for a long while. Not just for Jack’s sake, or for her sake, and certainly not to whip the ranch into shape. Mrs. Twist wanted to help the young man she was beginning to love like her own son.
Roberta remembered the first day she held her newborn son in her arms. She was weak and sore from childbirth, but couldn’t wait to cuddle her baby. John was holding him, and studied his face intently. If Roberta didn’t know better, she would have thought that John wanted to make sure that Jack was really his. “A pretty boy, ain’t he?” Roberta asked her husband, but was instantly sorry she used the word “pretty.” John Twist didn’t react, but simply nodded his head and handed the baby to his wife. “I think he’ll make something of himself, John!” Roberta cooed as she kissed Jack’s tiny cheek. “Just you wait—I think we got ourselves a doctor or a lawyer on our hands!” John was silent. He walked over to the window of the ward and looked out the window.
Roberta hadn’t abandoned her hopes for Jack. In her way of thinking, he still had time to continue his education and become that doctor or lawyer or engineer. And just as she imagined a more mature Jack sitting behind an expensive, outsized desk, reading over a patient's chart, Mrs. Twist heard a pounding, a breaking of what sounded like dry rotted wood. She rushed over to the kitchen window and saw her husband taking a hammer to the barn. Mrs. Twist watched, fascinated, as John battered the barn with a sort of anger she didn't know he possessed. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her husband so passionate. His almost violent resolve frightened her a bit. Roberta wasn’t sorry that that old barn was coming down. To her it signaled a new beginning!