CATHEDRAL - Patrick Sean Lee (best books for 8th graders txt) 📗

more coughing…”Yes, I guess so Matthew. What do ya’ mean ‘buy’ Roosevelt Lodge? BUY it? For God’s sake, where would Gertie and I go if ya’ did?”

“Right here,” I said. “Why would the two of you even think of going anywhere else? Roosevelt Lodge is your home, the only one you’ve known for…how many years?”

Gertie looked over at her husband. “Fifty?”

Bernie cleared his throat one last time, and then said, “At least. I think. How old was we when we found the ramshackle old place, Gert? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight? I’ll be eighty-one come January.”

“A few years back,” Gertie calculated. “But whatdya’ mean…you’d actually buy the place, an’ we’d stay on?”

“Exactly,” I told her. “Who’d run Roosevelt Lodge if you left, for God’s sake? I don’t know anything about running a hotel.”

Bernie came alive all of the sudden.

“It’d be mighty expensive, Matthew. I mean…there ain’t nowhere in these hills that can compare to…”

“Name your price…Dad.” I hazarded that moniker, and as expected, Bernie ate it up. Gertie had taken hold of his arm way back at the words ‘twenty-five? Twenty-eight?’, and now she squeezed it with a look of joyous resolution on her chubby face. Having sat at this table for over a month, I knew that within a year, tops, he’d have to make the hardest choice of his life; sell his wonderful lodge and somehow move on, or try to continue managing it and collapse. Even with faithful Charlie around to do the physical…Roosevelt Lodge would kill him.

Imprint

Text: (c) Patrick Sean Lee-2010
Editing: Patrick Sean Lee
Publication Date: 11-21-2010

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To my wife who inspires me to create a new book with every word she speaks.