Make, Take, Murder (25 page)

“Everyone at the Detweilers’
liked lighting the candles,” said Anya, right before she burped. Linnea had sent her home with slices of brisket, carrots cooked with honey, and a fruit salad. I made my famous latkes, which we paired alternately with sour cream and applesauce. Both of us were stuffed.

My daughter’s face glowed in the light of the menorah. She’d opened the iTunes card from me with a whoop of joy. I opened a gift package of body wash and body lotion in Gold Leaf, my favorite scent from Thymes.

Izzy sat on Anya’s lap, drowsy because of his own full tummy. Gracie leaned against me, encouraged by my scratching around her ears. Jasper and Fluff curled up, spoon-like on the rug, and Petunia was displaying his round tummy so I could tickle it with my toes.

“Tell me everything,” I said. I hoped I didn’t sound desperate, but I was. In my more dreamy moments, I fantasized being a part of Detweiler’s family, having the type of relationship with his mother that I never had with Sheila, and enjoying his dad the way I never could mine. Life on a farm sounded infinitely appealing to me, even though I was smart enough to realize it was a harsh, unforgiving way to make a living. Still, Detweiler once told me that the farm had been in their family for generations. It was a Centennial Farm, a designation given by the Illinois Department of Agriculture for those properties with straight or collateral lines of ancestors that could be traced back a hundred years. The state boasted about eight thousand such homesteads.

“Came through my mother’s family,” said Detweiler. “My dad’s parents moved here from Germany, and my dad worked for Mom’s family. He fell in love with her and the land at the same time.”

“It’s really sick,” said Anya, using the latest teen slang for “great” or “cool.” “They have this white house with dark green shutters. Sits on a hill. Out back is a big tree with a rope swing. Their barn is red, like Old MacDonald’s. Mrs. Detweiler has a huge herb garden and a vegetable garden, too. She’s really into canning and making preserves. There’s a creek running through the land. It dumps into this totally awesome pond where you can fish in the summer. We piled onto a wagon that Mr. Detweiler loaded with bales of hay. Mrs. Detweiler covered us with quilts she’d made and gave us each flashlights. She gave Emily a picnic basket for us to open later. Mr. D. drove us really carefully along the county road where they live and onto a neighbor’s land. There were two of Emily’s friends, Sophie and Kendra. Their parents had built this bonfire so we could roast hotdogs. Mrs. D. packed potato salad and buns and hot cider for us. I never ate so much food in my life.”

I wanted to ask what Detweiler’s sisters were like, but I didn’t want to seem as nosy as I felt. Instead, I skirted the subject by asking about the kittens.

“Totally cool. See, the mama had six. She was fine with us touching them. Mrs. D. had her in a big wooden box in their kitchen. So Mama Cat was lying on all these towels and surrounded by all these teensy, tiny squirmers. They went, ‘Meeeyou,’ in the smallest little voices. Can I have one, Mom, please?”

“Let’s get through the holidays, okay?” I knew she’d be asking me daily, but this would buy me some time.

“Grandma says we don’t need another financial drain. She says that unless you hurry up and get married, we’ll be broke forever.”

“I see. Does that scare you?”

“I get tired of seeing you worry. I wish you didn’t have to work so hard. But I don’t want you to marry anyone you don’t want to. I mean, Mr. Novak—Ben—tries really hard to be nice to me. I can’t imagine him as a stepfather though.”

I nodded. We’d make short work of cleaning up the kitchen. The short, fat Hanukkah candles were almost burned down to nothing.

“How about if we declare this a ‘no worries’ night? Just for tonight, we’ll make like the Australians and say, ‘No worries, mate.’ I think we need a bit of fresh air. How about if we drive over to Santa’s Magical Kingdom?” I waved two tickets at her. They were a bit crumpled from being squished in my back pocket.

“I’m too old for that,” said Anya, cautiously.

“That’s right, you are. You’re too old for fun, too old to get excited, too old to have a good time with your mother, right? Better go to sleep right away because tomorrow you have to go out and get a job. All those adult responsibilities, whew.”

One side of her mouth hitched up in a smile. “Oh, Mom. You are so weird.”

I giggled and she did, too. “By the way,” she added. “Do you really have a belly-dance outfit with lots of veils?”

The line into the
park was long, but the cars moved quickly. We followed the wonderful light displays, oohing and ahhing over all of them. My favorite was the dancing elves. Anya loved the river of lights. On the way home, I pulled off the highway into an empty store parking lot. We sipped our hot chocolate and ate the sugar cookies Linnea had sent home for us. She cut them into menorahs, dreidels, and stars of David before icing them in blue and white. Anya shared more about Emily, Sophie, and Kendra. “Emily’s, like, really smart. Cute, too. You can tell she’s, like, the leader of them all. Sophie is more quiet and totally pretty. Kendra is a tomboy, but she still likes girlie stuff, too. Even Nicci admitted they were neat. That sort of surprised me because Nicci can be a snob,” Anya said.

I smiled to myself. Yes, I figured that about Nicci. I was glad Anya noticed it, too.

“I’d like to visit the girls again. Better yet, could we have them over here for a scrapbooking crop? None of them know much about scrapping. I told them I could show them. I think they’d be totally, like, amazed at the store. They can’t believe you’re a part owner.”

I told her we’d make plans to reciprocate after the first of the year, and she started ticking off all the fun things the kids could do on this side of the river. On the way back from Santa’s Magical Kingdom, which was over in Eureka, I brought up the topic of boys and respect, but things definitely had not gone as I had planned. My nimble daughter danced around exactly what happened and who was involved. I got the distinct feeling this hadn’t been a chance meeting. Dollars to donuts, Anya and Nicci were using the mall as a rendezvous spot. I made a note to myself to discuss this development with both Sheila and Jennifer Moore.

I also suspected that Anya harbored a crush on one of the seniors.

Was he one of the mouthy boys? I couldn’t tell.

I desperately wanted to hammer home the importance of R-E-S-P-E-C-T, really I did. In the end, however, I decided that Detweiler had made his point—and that Anya had gotten the message. Additional harping by me might actually do more harm than good.

How I wished he were sitting here now! How I missed having him drop by! We’d often talk about kids, about the problems involved with raising them, and the best ways to help a kid stay on the right path. Even though he was childless, I valued his input. He had learned a lot by watching his sisters. As the only boy in a house full of sisters, he seemed to understand how girls think.

I turned the cell phone over in my hand. My fingers hesitated over the keys. In the end, I decided to wait. Tomorrow, I would search for proof hidden in Cindy Gambrowski’s scrapbook pages. That would give me a good reason to call. While we were on the phone, I would ask for his family’s address so I could send a hand-written thank you note, a “bread-and-butter” note, as my Nana always called them.

Detweiler’s family. That was a subject I wanted to explore further.

Anya grew excited as she talked about her new friend Emily, but she became confused as she tackled the names of Detweiler’s sisters. Anya was getting muddle-headed as she grew sleepy. She skipped from one topic to the next. From the Detweiler neighbors to the kittens to the girls and then she rambled on about places they could visit on this side of the river. My sweet kid was clearly running out of steam. First, she’d talk a minute, then be quiet for several more, then mumble a disjointed word or two. By the time I pulled into our driveway, she was fast asleep.

I managed to rouse her and guide her into the house. She plopped down, face first, onto her bed. I pulled off her shoes and tucked her in before I went about my end-of-the-day chores. Monroe was standing at the fence, searching for me, waiting patiently. Might have been my imagination, but when I told him that Leighton would be home tomorrow, he seemed inexpressively sad.

“Monroe, darling, now that I know what a complete lover-boy you are, we’re friends for life.” I rubbed the insides of his long ears. To return the affection, he fluttered those long gray lips and tried to smooch me.

Stroking the big, mute beast soothed me.

There was an aspect of Anya’s reportage that niggled, that I couldn’t shake off. One of the Detweiler sisters had said, “So your mother is the famous Kiki Lowenstein?”

“But she didn’t sound mean or nosy. Not really. More like she was thinking hard, you know?” Anya rushed to clarify.

“Yes,” I agreed, not wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill.

But that “yes” was a boldfaced lie. I worried that either or both of Detweiler’s sisters were Brenda Detweiler fans. A panicky voice inside me obsessed over the small bother, the way your fingers worry a scab.

I gave Monroe a final pat and headed for the house. If his sisters hated me for Brenda’s sake, there was no help for it. Certainly, nothing I could do tonight. In a fitful effort to banish my worries, I washed and folded two loads of clothes. I ironed a blouse for Anya and one for me. I mixed up banana bread, poured it into loaf pans and stuck it in the refrigerator, so I could bake them tomorrow.

I was worn out and coughing by the time I decided to call it quits. This had been a long and tiring day.

I turned the thermostat down as low as I could. I set my alarm clock.

I stared at my bed. It seemed too vast and too empty. I shrugged. Once in a while, it hits me that I might be alone for the rest of my life. That’s when moving on becomes a struggle. And facing that empty bed was more than I could handle tonight.

I put on my jammies, a pair of knit pants, an old white tee-shirt of George’s, and a faded sweatshirt. Then I headed back into my living room.

The dogs were snoozing happily on my sofa. Martha Stewart might want to smack me around a little, but I quit tossing my furry friends off the sofa years ago. Instead, I cover the cushions with old beach towels. After all, the dogs aren’t trying to be bad; they just want a soft spot on which to rest their weary bones. I understand; I do, too.

Before I settled down, I checked on Anya one last time. She was curled up in a ball while Izzy was sleeping in the crook formed by the hollow behind her knees. He raised a pair of bug-eyes to me, growled a sec until he realized who I was, wagged his tail, and whimpered a distinct, “Uh, sorry about that!”

I laughed and petted him. “Hey, a guard dog can’t be too careful, can he?”

He wagged his tail harder to indicate his total agreement.

I closed Anya’s door and asked God to protect my baby.

I sighed, nudged the dogs to one end of the sofa and settled down with my library book. A rumble shook the window panes. I listened for a second and went back to the latest Duffy Dombrowski mystery
Out Cold
. I love Al, the basset hound in the series, and even though I don’t like boxing, I think Duffy is fantastic. The thunder outside crescendoed into a low, dish-rattling threat. Petunia sat upright and sobbed. “Come here, little boy,” I said, lifting him into my lap. “It’s okay. Just one of those weird Missouri midwinter thunderstorms. You’d think Mother Nature would have sense enough to hit the snow switch, but no. She sends us a totally inappropriate thunder-boomer of a rainstorm.”

He shivered and stuck his head under my armpit.

I pulled him closer, tucked my feet under us and rested my head on the sofa arm.

It was good to know that one of God’s creatures—small and miserable as he was—could look to me as a tower of strength. Petunia slowly backed out from under my armpit and shivered up at me. I cuddled poor Petunia. “Buddy, I know you are scared, but it’s just a big noise. Sound and fury signifying nothing. Sometime tonight the rain will turn to snow. Tomorrow, you’ll be romping in the flakes with your friends. Close your eyes and dream of Milkbone biscuits and chew toys.”

He relaxed a bit in my arms.

In return, I snuggled deeper into the sofa. Soon he was snoring, and I was more asleep than awake.

Tomorrow I would tackle nailing Ross Gambrowski’s tail feathers to the wall.

But tonight was a “no worries” night. I had declared it so. Behind my closed eyes, I conjured up the Mary Engelbreit poster, “Queen of Everything.”

“Petunia, I am the Queen of Everything. Did you know that? You are my loyal subject, Tunia-Boy.” I rubbed his velvety ear, and he rewarded me with a loud snore. That made me smile.

My kid was safe, I had food in my tummy, a roof over my head, and a dog in my lap plus three at my feet. Oh, and there was that donkey in my stable. Just like the one that the blessed Mary had trusted to carry her and her baby to safety.

“God, please, carry us to safety.” That was the prayer that ended my day.