Annabelle Listened

By Angela Groshong

A chance encounter brings Kelly into Timothys life. She comes into the family shop asking about a painting. She wants to know if its a real Witherspool, not knowing shes talking to a bunch of real Witherspools. So begins the retelling of a story long overduethe story of Annabelle and Johnathan, Timothys parents.

Annabelle and Johnathan were never meant to be. Annabelle is a special needs tutor, ambitious and ready to help the Witherspool family with their sweet but troubled children. She is impressed when she meets her bosss brother, an artist named Johnathan. Despite his crippling speech impediment, they soon become best of friends.

They fall in love and plan to be married, but the town is prejudiced against their union. In order to make their dreams comes true, Annabelle and Johnathan must overlook the small minds of their small town. Love knows no limits and recognizes no faultstwo truths learned the hard way in a Witherspool family that continues to thrive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491737637

Angela Groshong

Angela Groshong lives in Sultan, Washington. Due to health issues, she is disabled and lives with her parents. She loves to write and create things. She hopes that, through her words, readers will understand what people with special needs go through.

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ANNABELLE LISTENED

Copyright © 2014 Angela Groshong.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse LLC

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3764-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3765-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3763-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910683

iUniverse rev. date: 07/15/2014

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Timothy Gets Teased Even More

Chapter 3 The Three Brothers Tell a Story

Chapter 4 The Story

Chapter 5 Annabelle Gets a New Job

Chapter 6 Meeting the Children

Chapter 7 First Day of Learning

Chapter 8 Trouble in School

Chapter 9 Annabelle Gets a Visitor

Chapter 10 Annabelle Goes Shopping

Chapter 11 Betty’s Sickness

Chapter 12 Annabelle Saves the Day

Chapter 13 The Brothers Fight over Annabelle

Chapter 14 Johnathan Has a Surprise

Chapter 15 The Rumors Start

Chapter 16 The Big Day

Chapter 17 Johnathan’s Talent

Chapter 18 Unexpected News

Chapter 19 The Kids Pick Baby Names

Chapter 20 Things Take a Turn for the Worse

Chapter 21 The Really Big Surprise

Chapter 22 Timothy Finishes the Story

Chapter 23 Kelly Gives the Witherspools a Gift

Chapter 1

The Beginning

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It was just a normal day at the shop for Timothy, who had just finished organizing the shelves. His older brother, Dayman, was done sweeping the floors and had headed to the back of the shop, so next up was the cash register. Timothy hated that thing. It would never open when he wanted it to. When it did finally open he had already gotten what he needed out of the back office. All in all, Timothy did greatly enjoy working with his older brother at their family’s pawn shop off Main Street. It was a small, old shop in a small country town. It had a lot of room for parking for both customers and deliveries to the shop.

Dayman was rather impressed by how big the shop seemed. For being small, it had a lot of room. Everything was openly spaced so there was no clutter. The shelves were always kept neat and clean. The floor wasn’t really a floor at all; it was the ground. The floor had been rotting away when Timothy bought it, so instead of replacing the floor, he and his brother decided to take the floorboards out and replace it with dirt. That way they only had to sweep it to get the rocks out and not worry about anyone tracking anything in.

It seemed to Timothy like only yesterday they had been selling fine art to art galleries across the way. But with health issues and other problems, the family had had no choice but to sell their fine art collection and start over. There were no regrets about it, though.

Timothy had always wanted to go back to school and become a great artist like his father. But he never had the time or the courage to leave home, not with the way things were. Timothy was thinking about this as he finished cleaning out the register. He didn’t seem to have any problems with it today, which was nice for a change. Most of the time his two brothers had to stop him from getting mad at the store and his current situation and from throwing the whole store in the dumpster. Suddenly Timothy heard a loud crash. It sounded like one of the vases on the shelf to the right of the window had broken.

Ah, I knew it. I knew that was going to happen. I leave it alone for a minute and the shelf falls apart. Grr, said a loud voice from the back room. It was Dayman. He had just put the broom and mop away and was looking for something to fix the broken shelf with when he heard it break.

I’ll clean it up. You can clean up in the back office, Timothy told his brother, as he was done cleaning out the register and was now walking toward the back office.

Thank you. I’ll help you when I’m done in here, Dayman said as Timothy handed him the money from the register to put in the safe box.

Hey, Andy, come lock the door and switch the sign for me, please, Timothy shouted as he walked to the broom closet.

Sure thing, Uncle Timmy, said a rather cheerful voice from the side office.

Andy was Dayman’s