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Bethanne suspected Vance’s effort to co If the tone of Annie’s voice was any indication, she’d figured that out, too Vance would stay in touch for the first feeeks, and then all his good intentions and promises would fall by the wayside Frankly, Bethanne was just as glad, although she’d never tell Annie that

"Where are we spending the night?" Annie asked, leaning forward and thrusting her head between Bethanne and Ruth in the front seat

"I have a reservation in Spokane," Ruth answered

"Spokane?" Annie repeated "That’s only five hours from Seattle Can’t we drive farther than that?"

Ruth looked over at Bethanne "When I ements I intended to travel alone I estimated that between four and six hours on the road would be my limit I wanted to make it a leisurely trip"

"We’ve been to Spokane at least a dozen ti there is to see"

Bethanne had, as well "This is your grandhter "If Grandht in Spokane, then that’s e’ll do"

"Okay" Annie slu pool?"

"I don’t know" Ruth flipped open her itinerary

"Tell me the name of the hotel and I’ll look it up on my phone"

"You can do that?" Ruth sounded iave Annie the hotel na by her sigh, the hotel was pool-less

"We’ll have lunch, and then check out the local attractions There’s a mall close by, isn’t there, and a movie theater? No reason we have to stay in the rooestions

She assumed they’d reach Spokane a little after one The truth was, Bethanne agreed with Annie She was certainly willing to drive beyond Spokane However, this was Ruth’s trip, as she’d pointed out, and she was reluctant to do anything that would diminish her mother-in-law’s enjoyment Ruth had waited years for this opportunity, so Bethanne refused to cheat her out of even one second of her carefully planned adventure

"I…I suppose we could go a bit farther," Ruth et to Florida"

"Have you heard from anyone there?" Bethanne asked

"Just Jane and Diane"

"Wow, fifty years," Annie said "That’s a long ti is, it doesn’t seeo--it really doesn’t"

"How raduated in…" Bethanne quickly calculated the years, astonished that it’d been twenty-nine years since she’d left high school "Twenty-nine years," she whispered, hardly able to believe it

"Did you ever go to your reunions?"

Annie certainly seemed to be in an inquisitive mood "No Your father--" Bethanne paused, about to lay the blame at Grant’s feet While it was true that Grant hadn’t been enthusiastic about attending her high school functions--or, for that one by herself, and hadn’t It wasn’t like Eugene, Oregon, was all that far frolish professor now retired, had taught at the University of Oregon Her o Bethanne was proud of the way her father coped with being a er Despite his grief he hadn’t given up on life; in fact, he was currently in England with a group of students on a Shakespearean tour

They spoke and eularly, and she’d recently learned that he was dating Her father had a more active social life than she did, which actually on?" Annie asked

"Yes, in Pendleton," Ruth confir on a big engineering project there I don’t remember exactly what it was now We moved around quite a bit the first few years ere married"

"How far is Pendleton from here?"

"Oh, dear, I wouldn’t know"

"I’d like to see the tohere Dad was born," Annie said "Couldn’t we spend the night there instead?" She reached for her phone again "It would e our route, but it wouldn’t be that much out of our way"

"We were only in Pendleton for the first year of his life," Ruth said

"Do you have any friends living there?" Annie pressed, but before Ruth could answer, she asked another question "I’ll bet it’s been ages since you connected with theo I’m sure they’ve ers were primed and ready as she held her cell phone "I’ll look them up and find out for you"

"Annie," Bethanne warned Her daughter see control of the trip

"Okay, okay, I’ll shut up and we can spend the night in Spokane and sit around the hotel rooetic look

"I had a friend by the name of Marie Philips" Ruth’s voice was tentative, uncertain "She wasmother herself Her parents owned a s gone by now"

"We need to eat, don’t we?" Annie said triuht not even be in business anyed to remind her

"Is her name listed on that co more interested by theaway