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~*~
DECEMBER CAME IN LIKE a lion that year, outside and inside. One day, three feet of snow blocked Paul into our driveway. My skin crawled when I was around him, so I hid in my room all morning. Finally, around noon, I tried to sneak downstairs to grab something to eat.
He was sitting in my favorite chair, looking at my little red book.
I turned, ready to bolt up the stairs and lock my door.
He shouted at me. “Rose! What in the tarnations are you doing reading this thing? Where’d you get it? Looks like a library book?”
I swallowed several times. “It is. Miranda picked it up for me by accident.”
“It’s stamped three months ago. And why are all these pages folded down?”
I glared at him, trying to believe my own answers. “I have no idea. Where’d you find it? I thought I’d lost it.”
He stood, dropping the book to the chair. He pointed to my side table. “It was sitting right on this blessed table, Rose. You okay?”
The urge to scream almost overwhelmed me. Instead, I ran up to my room to hide. It seemed like all I ever did. Lie and hide.
My mother was waiting near my closet.
“I know, Mother. I’m going to do something about this, really soon.”
Paul’s sharp rap on my door made her disappear. “Who you talking to, Rose?”
~*~
THE CAREGIVER, WHO finally admits his name is Anthony, maneuvers Miranda out of the car, into her wheelchair, and down the hall to her suite in an admittedly gentle manner. He then books it out of her room, presumably to get a nurse.
Miranda doesn’t ask any questions about my shirt-grabbing interrogation technique. Her eyelids are drooping and she seems utterly depleted. She grabs my hand and squeezes it before the overly cheery nurse whisks her into her room.
What did Anthony hear? I replay our conversation at that metal table. Miranda watching the tree, distracted. The gutter cleaning farce. Then, “You want a picture of Rose? I’ve got a whole album of them.”
I need to find that album and get it to a safe place before the hot blonde volunteer finds it. After all, that last note had no envelope, so it had to be an inside drop job. She would’ve had access—they keep a master key for each room in the main office. Would she have been able to switch Miranda’s meds, too?
Sidling up to the buffet drawers, I open one and glance in while the nurse works in the other room. How easy would it be for someone to walk in Miranda’s suite door? Half the time it’s not locked.
Finally, I lean over the couch to check a crowded bookshelf. I spot a black-bound album at the very bottom. When I walk around to pick it up, the nurse comes out, giving me an odd look. I smile, like I’m totally supposed to be doing this. “I’ll lock up for you,” I offer.
“Okay. Just tiptoe. She needs to sleep. Low blood pressure today. Did she have Thanksgiving dinner with you?”
“Yes. Sorry I didn’t get her back sooner.” I hold my stomach, and she seems to notice my pregnancy.
“Don’t you worry about that. She needs to get out every now and then. And not just with that Paul character, either.” She shakes her head.
Interesting way to refer to Miranda’s fiancé. “Does he come over all the time?”
“Not really, but I don’t know what she sees in him. He seems a hanger-on, you know. Lawsie knows she doesn’t need anybody hanging on to her in this condition.”
My thoughts exactly.
Once the nurse bustles away, I tug at the overstuffed album until the books on top of it finally release their grip. It’s getting dark in the suite, but I don’t want to turn on a light and wake the Grande Dame. I tuck my bulky plunder beneath my arm, pulling out my keychain. Miranda had a suite key made for me last year.
On the way out, I smile at the elderly people in the TV room. My heart goes out to them, all but abandoned on Thanksgiving. Perhaps I should contemplate having a brood of children, purely for the mercenary motive of having someone to look after me for life. I cover my baby with my hand, pleased to feel more of a bump. Nikki Jo will probably want to take me maternity clothes shopping as soon as it’s vaguely necessary.
I speed-walk across the quickly darkening parking lot. After my hunch about Anthony’s spying proved to be correct, it’s anyone’s guess who’s watching my every move.
Safe in my seat, I turn on the heat and flip the overhead light so I can peep into the album. Here’s hoping I snagged the right one.
A yellowed news clipping lies on the first page. It’s Russell’s obituary. The corners are worn. Miranda practically worshiped her first husband—why does she need another?
I flip through photos of a young Miranda and Russell, probably on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls. More pics of them draped around each other...then some baby pictures. Must be Miranda’s only child, Charlotte. Baby Charlotte is positively cute as a Gerber baby, but I have mixed feelings about grown-up Charlotte. I don’t even think she called her mother today.
The pictures of Rose are toward the very end. She poses in front of her flowerbeds, one of which is tightly planted with stalks of bell-shaped purple and white flowers. Exactly like the flowers in my vivid dream.
The look on Rose’s magazine-beautiful face strikes me as disingenuous. Sure, she’s offering a warm, full smile. But while her eyes are focused on the photographer, she’s not there. It’s as if she’s seeing something else entirely.
The last picture is taken on Rose’s front porch, leafless trees in the background. Rose leans over the railing, shielding her eyes from the sun. She wears slim pants and a fitted sweater. And her hand covers her stomach, mirroring the unmistakable protective gesture I make all the time.
Rose was pregnant. Did Miranda—
A movement catches my eye. I roll down the window and turn off the car, peering into the stark, bluish light of the parking lot. I feel someone staring at me, probably from the parked truck a couple cars to my left. Switching my knife from my pocket to my hand, I open the door and walk around my Escape to get a closer look.
Immediately, the black truck revs a couple of times and screeches out, but not before the streetlight illuminates a head-full of long blonde hair. I guess that spying volunteer was putting in some overtime.