Chapter 9
DeeAnn slid the chicken back into the oven and went to work mashing the potatoes. It was time for Sunday dinner, one of her favorite times of the week. Karen was coming. Visits from her were rarer than what DeeAnn would have liked. Karen was a nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center and, because she was so new, she had very little control over her schedule. Her first year was turning into nothing but work and sleep.
DeeAnn had wondered recently if her daughter was dating someone. She had received a phone call from someone canceling an outing and had been obviously disappointed.
DeeAnn tried not to pry in Karen’s personal life. She was a grown woman—at least that’s what DeeAnn kept telling herself.
“You and your strawberry kitchen,” Karen said as she walked in the door.
DeeAnn looked up from her mashed potatoes before she plopped more butter in. “I like strawberries. They make me smile.”
Karen laughed. It was the same sweet rippling laugh it always was, just a bit deeper. “What can I do to help?”
“Set the table. Everything else is in hand.”
“Chicken smells great,” Karen said as she reached into the cupboard for plates and headed into the dining room. She was tall and thin like her dad and it was her habit to reach the tallest shelves for DeeAnn, who was a bit shorter but a lot rounder.
“Yes, it does.” DeeAnn’s husband, Jacob, came into the room.
“It needs a few more minutes,” DeeAnn said as if trying to hold him back with her voice. He was so impatient sometimes.
“Just heard about the woman they found this morning,” Jacob said, reaching into the silverware drawer.
“What woman?” Karen called from the dining room.
“Esmeralda Martelino,” DeeAnn said, sprinkling more salt into the potatoes.
“How did you know?” asked Jacob.
DeeAnn reached down in her cupboard to get a serving bowl for the potatoes and a sharp pain ripped through her back. It flattened her, stomach-first onto the hard linoleum floor. What’s happening? Where is my breath?
“DeeAnn?” She heard Jacob say through her haze of pain.
“Mom? What is it?” Karen crouched down beside her.
“My back,” DeeAnn managed to say. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.” Just breathe, she told herself. But she wasn’t sure she could. It felt like her lower back was on fire and if she moved an inch it would erupt.
“Hold on,” Karen said. “Don’t move. Dad, can you get the heating pad warmed up?”
“Heating pad? Do we have a heating pad?” he said with panic in his voice.
“Yes, Dad. It’s in the closet next to the bathroom, third shelf down. What does it feel like, Mom—a dull thud? A sharp pain?”
“It was sharp,” DeeAnn said. “It’s easing off into dull. Feels like something is out of place.”
“How long have you been having problems? Can you twist around onto your back?” Karen asked.
“I think so.”
“Here it is,” Jacob said, coming into the kitchen and proudly holding up the heating pad.
DeeAnn and Karen exchanged looks.
“Can you plug it in next to the couch? Also get more pillows. We’re going to need to prop Mom up.” Karen was taking charge of the situation.
Had DeeAnn not been in such pain, she’d have told her how proud she was of her daughter, the nurse. A grown woman.
The scent of the chicken reminded DeeAnn that the bird needed to be pulled out of the oven. “The chicken.”
“Don’t worry,” Karen said. “I’ll take care of the chicken. We need to get you to the couch first.”
Karen. What a kind, knowledgeable, sensible young woman she’s become. DeeAnn looked up into her daughter’s face and saw a woman she could not be more proud of and started to cry.
“Oh now,” Jacob said, as he helped her up from the floor, his arm around her shoulder. “DeeAnn, don’t cry, sweetheart.”
“Are you in that much pain?” Karen asked.
“I am,” DeeAnn said, sniffling. But that’s not why I’m crying, she wanted to say. They would never understand the way she just had seen time stand still, move back and forward, in just a flash. Her daughter, a grown, capable woman . . . with the same face, the same eyes, hell, the same freckles she’d always had. The same freckles DeeAnn’s mother had had. Lord, the woman was a lot like DeeAnn’s own mother. She had a moment of existential dread and panic. Stop, she wanted to say. Stop growing up. I want to hold you here forever.
Her back jabbed at her and brought her back to the present. She carefully sat on the couch, with Karen lifting her feet and Jacob propping pillows up behind her.
“That okay?” His blue eyes were full of concern.
Dee Ann nodded. Yes, it was okay. It would be okay. Time marches on, the way it’s meant to. It felt like just yesterday she was a new bride, a new mom, and now, here she was—an old, fat woman with a bad back.
Her husband handed her a tissue. “Get yourself together, woman,” he said and grinned.
“I better see to the chicken,” Karen said and left the room.
“I love you, Jacob Fields, even if you don’t know where the heating pad is kept. Jesus Lord, man, where do you live?”
Jacob laughed. “I never had to use it, I guess. Is it getting hot?”
DeeAnn nodded.
When they were gathered around the TV after eating dinner and watching the Steelers game, DeeAnn filled them in on what she knew about Esmeralda.
“How about that? My mom is in on the scoop,” Karen said.
DeeAnn beamed. “Of course, they figure the killings are linked. They’re sisters. Both killed within a day of one another.”
“Nobody knows how yet?” Jacob asked.
“Nope,” DeeAnn said. “But you know what is the oddest thing?”
Jacob and Karen looked in her direction.
“Both of them were found with scrapbooking pages in their hands,” DeeAnn watched as her daughter almost spilled her after-dinner coffee.