A House by the Side of the Road (28 page)

He shrugged. “Sometimes. I'm a little fussier sometimes. Less efficient maybe than Dan. It's not a problem. Why?”

“Oh, I just wondered if two competent people doing the same job might not run into … I don't know. Problems.”

“He's the boss,” said Jack. “And he knows his stuff.”

Meg looked out the window at the tender green of the fields. “Do you have any idea what the deal is between John Eppler and Mike Mulcahy?”

Jack grinned. “Already getting embroiled in our local intrigues?”

“I guess it's nosy of me,” she said, “but Mr. Eppler appears not to be on speaking terms with Mike, and it's mysterious.”

“Everything's mysterious with Mike,” said Jack. “Like, just what is it everybody sees in him? Help me out here. You spend time with him. Would
you
trust him to represent you?”

Meg was surprised. “I … I guess so,” she said.

Jack made a small noise. “But you asked about Eppler and him. Who knows? Eppler's been bitter toward Mike for months, and Mike seems to get some pleasure out of goading him. I don't know what it is. Maybe Mike slapped a bee at a town picnic and Eppler saw him.”

*   *   *

The phone rang as Meg was eating dinner. She went into the living room and answered, trying to swallow silently. It was Sara.

“How's it going?” she asked. “Still wallowing in the slough of despond?”

“I never was,” said Meg. “I was just a little lonely. It didn't help to look forward to seeing you and then not. But I've got my car back. Jack took me to get it.”

“Aha!” said Sara. “And?”

“And nothing, unfortunately.” Meg sighed. “He is so … oh, I don't know. Attractive. And helpful. And the question is, why?”

Sara let out an exasperated groan. “Stop it! You can't do this. Jim's a jerk; he's not typical. Let this guy like you, for heaven's sake.”

“Fine,” said Meg. “You come visit and meet him and then you tell me I'm his type. When are you coming?”

“As soon as I've got the programming done for this stupid project, which better occur before I retire in thirty years.” She hesitated. “Meg?”

“What?”

“I've got some creepy news.”

“Which is?”

“I just think it's better to know these things.”

“Sara, what
is
it?”

“It was all over the office today. Jim's getting married.”

Meg leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Anybody I know?”

“Teresa somebody,” said Sara. “Nobody at work has met her. Are you all right?”

“Sure,” said Meg. “Why not?”

It wasn't him, then, after all. It was her.

Twenty

“Out?” yelled Meg, walking toward home plate from her position near third base. “He's
out?
The rule is you have to slide to avoid contact! There wasn't any contact; there wasn't going to
be
any contact!”

The umpire blinked at her. “In my judgment, ma'am,” he said with exaggerated politeness, “the ball was imminent, and your runner should have slid.”

Meg glared at him. “The ball was
imminent?
Then why didn't it ever
get
there?”

“Sit
down,
Meg,” whispered Christine, tugging at her.

Meg yanked her arm free and put her hands on her hips. “Maybe if you'd ever get out from behind the plate, you'd see what was happening in the field, where the plays are going on!”

“This conversation is over,” said the umpire, turning his back and adjusting the plate with his foot.

Meg steamed in silence, aware that every player on her bench was watching her, openmouthed. She turned and faced them, noticing that Dan kept his eyes on the score book he was holding.

“Hustle out,” she said. “Same positions as last inning. Let's hold 'em.”

Nine children moved onto the field. One boy slapped another on the back with his mitt. “Only sissies don't slide,” he said. “Sissy!”

Meg reached out and grabbed the back of the boy's shirt. “Sit, Brian,” she said. “Now! Tiffany, go in at second.”

She sat down and crossed her arms, staring through the chain-link fence of the dugout toward the pitcher's mound.

Christine sat next to her, speaking quietly due to the nearby presence of the players who hadn't taken the field. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I'm all right,” snapped Meg. “I'd be better if this league had some decent umpires.”

“You're not usually so … hot-tempered about a call,” said Christine, looking doubtful.

Meg couldn't argue the point. It was true. She glanced at the umpire, wondering if his dark hair and blunt, regular features were to blame, at least in part, for her fury at him.

“It
was
a bad call,” she said, “which was the umpire's fault. Patrick would have batted next and scored the runner, or it's real likely, and that would have tied the game, so not being tied now is, in my opinion, his fault too. But maybe, just maybe, it isn't his fault that he looks so much like Jim.”

Christine turned on the bench, her eyebrows drawn together. “You didn't hate this umpire last week.”

“I didn't hate Jim last week,” said Meg.

*   *   *

The dog jumped eagerly into the car and settled down on the backseat. Meg put an overnight bag on the passenger seat in the front.

“Maybe I should call you Barkis,” she said, twisting around to look at the dog. “It fits you both in the obvious way and as a literary allusion.”

The dog cocked her head, gazing at her owner out of the same eyes that had once seemed so mean.

“Come on,
you
know. As in, ‘Barkis is willin'.” From
David Copperfield?
Heaven knows
you're
willing. It's one of my favorite things about you. None of that, ‘Oh, dear, I already made plans for the weekend.'”

Meg turned the keys in the ignition. “Let's go see what there is to see,” she said. “It's Saturday. We're footloose. Why not? There's a whole state we know almost nothing about. Mountains, lakes, farms, Amish people in buggies. There isn't another practice until Tuesday. If it weren't for that, we could just keep going until our money ran out. That is, for five days instead of three.”

She pulled out onto the road and turned toward town, driving faster than she should. She didn't notice John Eppler wave cheerfully at her from his car as he passed on her left at a more sedate pace. She did notice Christine's house, the driveway empty. She had called Christine and left a message saying she'd be away for a few days.

When she passed Jack's house, he was pulling out of his driveway. He sounded three short blasts on his horn and waved for her to stop. Meg pulled over and rolled down her window, and he left his truck and jogged up to her car.

“Where are you off to?”

Meg lifted her shoulders. “Someplace. I haven't decided.”

“I was hoping you'd feel like a movie tonight.”

“No. I've got to drive for a while.”

“So we'll drive. We'll drive for hours. And my truck, as opposed to this rattletrap, can go anywhere.”

“Which means you'd be driving. No, thanks. I'm not criticizing; I wish everyone were as laid back as you, but I want to drive and I want to drive fast.”

She put her foot on the clutch and shifted into first gear. “I'll see you in a few days.”

“A few
days?
” He put a hand over one of hers on the steering wheel.

Meg nodded. “May I go now?”

He stepped back from the car and held up his hands, palms out. There was surprise in his eyes and something else. Hurt?

She drove away and glanced in the rearview mirror. Jack was standing next to his truck, looking after her. The dog moved on the backseat, catching her eye.

“I can see you watching me,” she said, “through the magic of reflected light. Don't you dare give me that reproachful look. I know I was rude, and I already regret it. He can't help it that he's male.”

She had been right to question Jack's interest in her. And it was ludicrous to think that Mike's flirtations were anything but a way to pass the time. It didn't matter whether all men were alike, which she wasn't stupid enough to think, or not; she was who she was, and would remain so. She could move anywhere, do anything; what real difference would it make?

She slammed her hand against the steering wheel. That Jim had done nothing she could identify as wrong made her furious.

“See, he didn't want to settle down when I was what he'd have to settle
for,
” she told the dog. “Now he's found someone who makes it sound all wonderful and cozy. Why? What makes
her
so great? What was wrong with me?”

The dog, aware that she was being addressed, whined and stood up. She stretched to put her paws on the back of Meg's seat and nudged the side of her neck with a cold nose.

Mike was on the sidewalk in front of his office. “Hey! Lady!” he yelled as she passed. Meg sighed and stopped, waiting for him to stride around her car and bend over.

“I hear you were less than pleased with the officiating today,” he said through the open window.

Meg looked angrily at him. “Yeah? Don't the people at the park have anything important to talk about? What? Did somebody think it merited a phone call to you?”

Mike's eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Hardly. The same ump called our game, and the subject of your game came up, that's all.”

“Oh, please!” she said. “And you sympathized with him, right? Even though you weren't there and didn't see his stupid call.”

Mike's brown eyes went blank. “What's the matter with you?” he asked.

“Good question,” said Meg. “Exactly the question I've been asking myself. Excuse me, but I'm blocking the street.”

Mike took his hand away from where it had been resting on the open window.

“I'm sorry,” said Meg. “Ignore me. There are just some things that I don't want to think about that I have to think about.”

She drove away. Near the far end of town, she stopped at a red light and looked around at the small stores, the people chatting on the sidewalk. Saint Paul's Lutheran Church was on her left, neatly tended flower beds in front and around the side. The library was across the intersection on the right.

The library. She pulled into a parking space in front.

The librarian was used to handing out the
Physician's Desk Reference.
“It's pretty technical,” she said. “I hope it's helpful.”

“Thanks,” said Meg. She carried the massive volume to a table and started through the listings for cardiovascular medications. Most of them were tablets. Mrs. Ehrlich had not been taking tablets. Tablets, to the best of Meg's knowledge, were solid colors. That meant Mrs. Ehrlich had been taking capsules. She glanced through the symptoms the various drugs treated. “Jumpy heart” was not among them, but arrhythmia was. Most of the medications prescribed for arrhythmia were tablets.

“Norpace,” murmured Meg, her finger stopping on the page. “Capsule.” She turned to the color photographs. There were several, of different dosages. Norpace CR was 150 milligrams, was normally taken every twelve hours, and was brown and green.

She got back in the car and turned to look at the dog. “Change in plans,” she said. “We're going home.”

*   *   *

“Hey, Dave,” said Meg, holding the phone in one hand and pulling a notepad closer with the other. “I know you're an internist, not a heart specialist, but I've got a question I hope you can answer.”

“Meg!” said her old friend. “Great to hear from you! Sara says you like the house and aren't moving back here. That true?”

“Seems to be,” said Meg. “But I miss you guys. Can I rummage around in your brain for a minute, Dr. Clark?”

“Rummage away,” said Dave. “But the twins are going to be waking up any second, and Paula's at the store, so make it snappy.”

“I want to know what would happen to someone who needed to take Norpace for arrhythmia and didn't.”

“Tell me more.”

“If an elderly person with a history of severe arrhythmia was taking 150 milligrams of Norpace CR twice a day and didn't take it, what would happen?”

“Didn't take it for how long?”

Meg traced over the word
arrhythmia
on her notepad. “I don't know. A day?”

“Not much. But it's not a good idea to miss doses.”

“How long would it take to die from missed doses?”

Dave hesitated. Meg could hear a wail in the background.

“I don't know for sure,” he said. “It's not a condition I'd be prescribing for. My guess is, about a week. Maybe more. Depends on how long that particular medication stays in the body.”

The wail was joined by another. “Would it be a dramatic death?”

“No,” he said. “It would be heart failure.”

“Thanks. Go take care of your babies. And kiss them each eleven times for me.”

She hung up and sat thinking. If Mrs. Ehrlich had died from missed doses of her medication instead of dying despite taking it, how could she have missed taking an entire week's worth, or maybe two? A person that forgetful would simply not be functioning, and Mrs. Ehrlich had been functioning. How could such a thing happen?

Jane's remarks came back to her. Separate lids that snap open … That was how it could happen. Mrs. Ehrlich could have simply forgotten one medication while filling the daily reminder boxes. Then, every day for a week, when she took her medicine, she might have thought she was taking it all.

The phone next to her rang.

“I got your message,” said Christine, “and hoped you hadn't left yet. Don't leave. I'm coming over. I'm walking, so you've got ten minutes to get the coffee on. I just had a big fight with Dan, and we need to talk.”