Most of the clothes she’d tossed into the suitcase were dirty. There was no time to wash them. Maspero didn’t give her much time to pack before her early-evening flight. Hopefully, she’d be able to deal with it in New York. Alex imagined there had to be a dry cleaning or laundry service on every block in fashion-centric Manhattan.
She was grateful to her coworker Kathy, who quickly offered her cruise bag when Alex mentioned she didn’t have any luggage. At first the bag’s size seemed preposterous, but the steamer-trunk-like bag made the decision-making process easier. Alex could bring whatever she wanted. After forcing the top down, she pushed with all her might to latch its brass fasteners.
Alex tucked a lock of hair that had slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear as she surveyed her work. She cursed herself for allowing her bangs to be cut in the first place. They were taking forever to grow out. A prick of annoyance perforated her thoughts. As of late she’d come to realize she might just die by a thousand small cuts of people running roughshod over her. Was she terminally too nice? Was her propensity to treat others well her Achilles’ heel?
She glanced in the distance at her bedside alarm clock wondering how much time she still had. Her pulse quickened as she grabbed for her phone. Her flight was in less than three hours, and she hadn’t even called a cab yet. This was real. She was going to New York City, a place she’d always wanted to go, on a mysterious errand for KHNM. She wasn’t certain if her anxiety outweighed her excitement or vice versa.
A soft dizziness overtook her as she sank into her tattered sofa. She cradled her head in her hands and closed her eyes, attempting to slow the sudden uptick in her breathing. Alex opened her eyes and pulled her phone near as she googled local cab companies. The dispatcher who answered laughed when she told him her address and proclaimed that today was her lucky day. A cabbie on a call was just stood up by a fare. A car would be there shortly.
In good traffic the ride to the airport would take thirty minutes. She should be able to get there a hair shy of the suggested two hour check-in window. She willfully avoided the temptation to contemplate a bad traffic day as she hauled herself and her trunk out of her apartment.
With all her belongings stored in the cab’s trunk, and the cab pulling away from the curb, her anxiety level dropped from overwhelmed to generally agitated. As she watched her neighborhood whiz by, it warmed her heart that the driver valued speed. If they continued at this pace, there would be nothing to worry about, and she’d be at the airport in plenty of time.
Alex lived in a small one bedroom apartment in an affordable area of the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. She moved from California once she’d gotten the job at the Oriental Institute. Her mother followed her to be near. It wasn’t the normal, everyday maternal ties that made her mother trade in sunshine and oranges for deep-dish and the Windy City; it was so she could be near her caretaker, Alex. The thought deflated the minimal level of excitement she’d managed to achieve upon setting off in the cab. She knew sooner or later her mother’s dependency on her would have to stop. It was slowly leaching away her energy. One of Alex’s friends had a term for people like Roxanne: an emotional vampire. It seemed to fit, but habits of an entire lifetime were hard to break.
The small neighborhood shops flashed by—the nail salon, coffee shop, and bookstore. The last word rang in her head like an overloud alarm clock. She’d forgotten tonight was book night.
Alex leaned into the front seat. “I have to make a stop before the airport.” She rattled off her mother’s address to the driver.
“The meter will be running,” the driver said flatly.
“It’ll be quick.” She was just going to pop in to tell her mom the basics. It bothered her that she would be so close to the one person who would know exactly what happened to her father all those years ago, but couldn’t ask her. She knew that the conversation, when it did come, would be a doozy.
The driver sighed and said again. “The meter will be running.”
When the cab pulled up to her mother’s house something about it seemed off-kilter. Over her lifetime, Alex had developed a sixth sense for aberrations that could tell of trouble to come.
“I’ll just be a couple minutes.”
“The meter will be running.” The driver’s tone continued to have the enthusiasm of a bored toad. Alex wondered if he was an automaton, and those were his only programmed words.
She stepped out of the cab and peered up at her mother’s three-story town house. It was late afternoon, so her mother wouldn’t normally have the house lit up, but there was a strange darkness about it. Alex stopped at the first stair and tried to read the house like a clutch of loose tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup. The caw of a crow drew her attention to the top floor, where her mother’s bedroom was. It was the drapes. Her long, velvet European-style blackout curtains were drawn. A familiar dense stone of disappointment fell hard into her gut.
Bernadette, her mother’s housekeeper and sometimes confidante, emerged from the house and into the slanting autumn sunlight. Alex opened her mouth to say hello and quickly shut it. The housekeeper had raised a finger to her mouth as she strode purposefully down the stoop to where Alex stood.
Bernadette leaned in close to Alex and spoke in a whisper, as if a normal speaking voice could be heard from the house looming above them. “Your mother’s been ill.”
Alex must have shot her a knowing look, as her mother’s helper quickly answered the unspoken question. “No. Dear me, not that. She is still securely on the wagon. Although I have noticed her usual period of pining for your father, like she does this time of year.” Bernadette sighed. “When the leaves turn, so does your mother’s mind.”
“You make it sound so poetic. For me this season has always been the unsettling calm before a titanic storm breaks.”
“Their love was something special. Her memories must be golden.” Bernadette’s gaze turned toward the yellow-tinged trees that lined the street, her eyes brimming with soft tears. She’d only worked for Roxanne for a year or so, but her mother and Bernadette managed to form a quick bond. Alex more or less chalked it up to Bernadette’s overly accessible and tender heart rather than anything to do with her mother, who didn’t make friends easily. “Roxanne caught the flu a few days ago and was up all night coughing. I finally got her to sleep. It’s been the first time in a number of days she has gotten good rest. I wouldn’t want to wake her. I was going to call you to cancel book night. I know you both look forward to it, but I told her sleep was more important, and book night could happen anytime.”
Alex’s hackles rose. At times Bernadette’s angelic nature rubbed her the wrong way. She always managed to see things in a positive light. Especially when it came to issues around her mother. Like book night. Bernadette viewed it as quality time for mother and daughter, but in reality it was an excuse for Roxanne to get her daughter to format the images for her upcoming coffee-table book for free. She tapped her fingers against her thigh. Thoughts of her cab ride and impending flight were weighing on her mind as time slipped away. “Could you give her a message for me?” The words came out harsher than she wanted. She checked herself and softened her tone. “I am heading out to New York on business for a couple of days. I shouldn’t be long. Could you tell her I will give her a call when I get there?”
“The Oriental Institute has an office in New York?”
“I guess the work isn’t literally for the Institute. It is for an affiliate organization. KHNM.”
Bernadette’s normally rosy complexion turned white as the cabbie honked his horn. Alex touched Bernadette’s arm. “Thank you, Bernadette.” She walked down the stairs and hopped into the waiting car. As the cab pulled away, Alex glanced up to see Bernadette standing stock-still on Roxanne’s stoop, her stony stare unchanged.