Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles (18 page)

If she could get out of this visit to the hospital, she would. But she owed Mabel the courtesy of a visit.

She counted off the room numbers until she found 436 in the corner. The wide door—wide enough to accommodate portable beds, wheelchairs, and several staff—was propped open a couple of inches. Inside, a monitor beeped an uneven rhythm.

Not good.

“Mabel?” she asked cautiously as she knocked on the door.

A rough mumble came from the fragile lump beneath the covers in the semi-darkened room.

“Mabel, can I come in?”

More mumbles that sounded almost affirmative came a little louder. Dusty decided to accept that as an invitation.

“Hi, Mabel, I brought you some flowers.”

“Didn’t have to do that.”

“I know, Mabel, but I thought they might cheer you a bit.” Dusty placed the milk glass vase on the nightstand beside the bed.

“Not from my yard.”

“No, I bought them from Main Street Flowers. Mike Gianelli says ‘Hi’ by the way. It’s October and all the gardens are too soggy and past their prime to cut a decent bouquet.”

“Gardens and Pixies go to sleep in winter. Is everyone okay at my house? Are the All Hallows decorations up? Will the parade go down Tenth Street this year?” A little animation lit Mabel’s wan and drawn face.

She looked so wasted when just days ago she’d been plump and vibrant. Or was that months ago? Dusty thought
hard, trying to remember when Mabel had last strode strongly around Skene Falls, confident and indestructible. Early last spring. By the Masque Ball in August she’d already shown signs of weight loss and a reduction in energy. The change had happened so gradually no one noticed.

Except the Pixies. She remembered Chicory and his brothers arguing about whether Mabel was sick or not the night of the ball.

“As far as I know, everyone at your house is well. Thistle is staying there, and Dick visits often. They set out the decorations yesterday afternoon. Dick did the talking tree. He and Thistle are engaged.”

“Good. What about the Festival?”

“Everything is on track. Though I wish Mom would shove some of her decorations over to your yard. She overdid it a bit.”

“Only a bit?” They laughed together for a moment.

“Your nephew wants to visit you,” Dusty said when she thought Mabel’s smile was firmly in place.

“No.” The smile collapsed along with her posture. “Only you and Chase. You two are my heirs. Not
him
.”

“As much as Chase and I appreciate your generosity, Mabel, it’s not fair to Ian. He’s your nephew. He only wants what’s best for you. You aren’t well. You’ll need help when you leave the hospital. You may not be able to live on your own anymore.”

“I’m not alone. I’ve got my Pixies.”

“Can Rosie or Chicory call nine-one-one if you fall or have another attack? Can they cook and clean for you? Or run to the pharmacy to refill your meds?”

Mabel looked away rather than answer.

“This is something you need to think about, Mabel.”

“I have thought about it. I’ll die before I’ll go to one of
those
places. I want you and Chase to have the house. For a time anyway. I know it’s not big enough for a growing family.”

“Mabel,” Dusty gulped back a lump that seemed permanently lodged in her throat. “Mabel, I can’t have children. The chemo stole that from me. Adoption is expensive. We’re going to have to wait to save up before we can afford children.” She
fussed with getting her glasses back to the perfect place on the bridge of her nose to avoid showing her emotions.

“Oh, I know all about that. Don’t worry, there are ways.” Mabel winked broadly, like she was letting Dusty into a big secret. A secret Dusty couldn’t figure out.

“I figure if you live in my house rent free for a couple of years, you’ll be able to afford a nice place for yourselves and the children that come your way. Then the garden becomes a park and the house becomes a historical dwelling, part of the museum complex.” She paused to breathe and clear her throat. “You can add it back into the haunted house tour Sunday afternoon and evening if you want.”

Alarmed at the turn of the conversation, Dusty offered Mabel the glass of water with the bent straw. Mabel drank greedily, as if those few sentences had parched her throat desert dry.

“I’ve thought it out. You and Chase move into the house as soon as you get back from your honeymoon. Dick can afford to buy a house for him and Thistle.”

This time her breath did not come back as easily. She persisted. Needing to say her piece.

“But I don’t want the place empty for even a day before that. Mr. Ian McEwen will see that as an excuse to claim the place and sell it off to developers. Won’t have that. Don’t want anyone displacing my Pixies. He doesn’t believe, and he runs with a rough crowd.”

“I checked the registry of Historic Homes. Ian can’t tear down the house. And unless he buys one of the adjacent houses, there is no access to the back lots. The land is worthless to a developer.”

“Won’t stop him.”

“Mabel, I’ve talked to Ian. He really does care about you. He just wants what is best for
you
.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s a greedy, money-grubbing bastard. Started when he was ten, taking up with a drug runner in The Ten Acre Wood. I put a stop to that in a hurry. Not in our Ten Acre Wood. His father was just as bad. Worse, maybe. Boy’s already tried to condemn the house twice because of cracks in the foundation. Rosie says there aren’t any cracks. She’d know.”

Dusty wondered if she would. Foundations were underground and Pixies couldn’t go there. Even in human form, Thistle couldn’t—or wouldn’t—go into a basement.

“Mabel, I wished you’d let Ian visit you here in the hospital. Ease his mind about your well-being.”

“Nope. Only you and Chase. Don’t want to see anyone else, and I’ve told the nurses and hospital security no other visitors.” She clamped her mouth shut and rolled over to face the window, her skinny back to Dusty.

D
USTY SQUIRMED AS ABIGAIL, THE modiste, pinned a seam in the corset cover for her wedding garments.

“Please, Miss Desdemona, you must stand still,” the woman said around a mouthful of pins. Her fake French accent took on overtones of Brooklyn with the impediment.

The next pin pricked Dusty’s skin through many layers of handkerchief weight linen.

“Ouch!” She batted Abigail’s hands away from the garment. A tiny dot of blood oozed through the surface of the corset cover.

“Now, look what you’ve done, Desdemona,” her mother admonished. “If you’d just stand still, we could get this fitting finished and you could go back to your little hobby at the museum.”

“Mom, my
job
is not a little hobby. I earned a Masters degree to get that job.”

“But think of how much more you could do with that degree. You could teach! Imagine the joy of exposing fertile little minds to the wonders of history and literature. The years I taught school were among the best of my life.”

“Mom, I am perfectly healthy now. I’ve been free of cancer for fifteen years. You could have gone back to teaching long ago if you really wanted to.” Dusty pushed back the little worm of guilt that she had been the reason her mother had to sacrifice her career.

She’s manipulating me again. I won’t give in. I won’t. I
can’t. If I give in now I’ll never be free of my past. I’ll always be Mom’s little lost child.

“But Dr. Martin said you need checkups for the rest of your life…”

“Checkups, not an invalid lifestyle. Not enough reason to keep you home.”
Smothering me with your fears.
Maybe Mom was truly the one who was running away and had become lost. Lost in a fantasy world.

Dusty bit back the words that she needed to say. A lifetime of deferring to other people so she could indulge in the safety of shyness made her drop her head and tune out her mother’s reprimands.

“Now, Abigail, if we soak that little stain in cold water, right now, it won’t show in the least.”

“My fault, Madame,” Abigail said, accent back in place. “Such a tiny drop of blood. No one will see it on an undergarment. We proceed with fitting.”

“If you think so, but I do want this wedding to be perfect.”

“It’s my wedding, Mom, not yours.”

“Of course, Desdemona. I want it to be perfect for you. It’s the biggest day of your life. We need to make the most of it since you can’t have children because of the cancer. Now don’t you think we should redecorate your room? I don’t think a man as strong as Chase will want to sleep beneath a canopy of pink ballerinas. I do so love a full house.” A sly smile crept over her face.

“Mom, do you even listen to yourself?”

“What? What did I say?”

“You’re planning on me staying at home with you and Dad for the rest of my life. Chase and I have plans. He has an apartment…”

“Such a waste of money to rent a little place like that. Better he move in with us. After all, a policeman doesn’t make a lot of money, and you won’t go find a better paying job at the community college. You should have taken the teaching position instead of pushing Joe into it just so you could stay at your museum…”

“Miss Desdemona,” Abigail interrupted. “I need you to try the hoops to see how they fit over the corset. Then next
fitting we progress to the dress itself. Such a beautiful piece of material…”

Something inside Dusty burst, like an overripe peach thrown against a barn. She’d done that once with Dick and Chase when she was six. And gotten into trouble for it. But, oh, how satisfying to hear and almost feel the squish as pulp flew in all directions.

“I’d rather elope than wear this horrible contraption!” There she’d said it. She’d let her true feelings fly and go splat against her mother’s face—judging by the horrified expression of gaping jaw and wide eyes, strawberry-blonde eyebrows reaching for her receding hairline.

Dusty began pulling at ties and hooks that she couldn’t really reach. A dozen pins cascaded from the seams, landing on the floor with loud pings in her mother’s shocked silence.

“I hate this dress. I hate the wedding you are planning. I hate thinking about living in your house the rest of my life. I hate being your fragile little doll. I want a life of my own! A wedding of my own. A home of my own.”

“If you don’t wear this dress…” Mom’s voice turned quiet, precise, and menacing.

“I’ll buy the one in the window of Bridget’s with my own money.”

“A contemporary dress won’t carry near the impact of a historical recreation. You can’t possibly mean that you prefer something
modern
. You’re a historian. Surely you want something that reflects your personality.”

“Yes, I do. And I’ve found the perfect dress, and it’s not this one. If you like it so much, you wear it.” Dusty threw the first petticoat into her mother’s face and marched behind the dressing screen. “Abigail, get me out of this corset or I swear I will shred it with my fingernails.” Dirty, broken fingernails after a morning in the basement cleaning, sorting, cataloging, and photographing artifacts found in a Chinook tribal midden. She knew where she belonged and who she was when she worked at the museum, in and out of the basement.

Phelma Jo tapped her foot impatiently against the floor of her Lexus—cream with gold trim. Ian was late meeting her at the Old Mill Bar and Grill. She’d been waiting since a half hour before their scheduled date of six thirty PM. It was now six forty-five. She had a clear view of the parking lot behind the building and the front entrance. He had not shown.

“No one does this to me!” she said, reaching for the key still in the ignition. “No one.” Not in high school. And definitely not now. Even Dick Carrick had the good manners to call her and break off their three-date relationship rather than stand her up.

“How did I offend Ian?” She paused with her fingertips on the key chain.

A tap on her window dragged her out of her loop of self-doubt.

“Ian!” She turned the key to auxiliary and rolled down the window, delight and reassurance filling the gaps in her mind, pushing out the bad thoughts. “Is everything okay? You look tired.”

“I am. Sorry to be so late, things got dicey at the office. I hate people who lie.”