Bun in the Oven: The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag, #6

by Jennifer L. Hart

  But between the photograph I’d seen and the woman who stood at her side, I realized Grace was much younger than I’d imagined, maybe not even thirty.

  Her mother was a plump woman with flawless brown skin and sharp brown eyes. She only came up to my chin so I approximated her height at five foot even. She moved slowly, as though carrying a great weight and from the tightness around her eyes and mouth, it seemed obvious she was in pain.

  “If this is a bad time we can come back.” Neil offered, taking the words right out of my mouth.

  “I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Grace’s mother said.

  I darted a look to Grace and then back to her mother who made steady progress toward a soft backed rocking chair. The doula had said that her mother never met any of her clients. Why had she been expecting us at all?

  “I think the jig is, up, Mama.” Grace set the tea things down on the low coffee table and then held the chair still until her mother settled into it. Her lips turned up in a wry sort of smile when she asked, “How did you find out?”

  Neil and I exchanged a glance. Though the words were ominous, they had a soft sort of sadness around them. I detected no menace, none at all, and I could conjure a threat from a 2 for 1 sale at Walmart.

  “My P.I. friend ran a background check.” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. “She called this morning to tell me you don’t exist.”

  Grace smiled and poured a cup of tea. She handed it to me, I took it, but didn’t drink. Cripes, had she been dosing me with something in the tea? I’d been downing giant mugs of it at a time.

  “It’s perfectly safe, just what I told you it was. And I’m who I told you I was all along. I worked as a nurse and then, when Mama’s back surgery didn’t go well, I became a doula.”

  Neil refused the offered tea and pressed, “If you are who you claim to be, why lie about your name to us?”

  “As I’m sure you noticed, my mother’s last name is McCoy. When I met Laura I told her my last name was McCoy, well, because I thought you wouldn’t meet me if you knew the truth. ”

  I watched Adelaide McCoy sip her tea and then rock back and forth. I felt as though I were missing something, completely lost and unsure of what question to ask next.

  Neil had no such problem. “And what truth is that exactly?”

  “That you knew my father. You were there when he died.” She was looking right at me when she said it.

  “Wait, what? I’ve never been around when someone died. Well except for....” My words trailed off as I looked at Grace’s sad face. Her features so familiar that I’d been unable to place her until now. “Holy freaking crap.”

  Neil was frowning, he still hadn’t made the connection.

  “My father was Detective Bradley Patterson.” Grace spoke slowly and calmly as though telling a bedtime story. “He tried to kill Maggie.”

  Chapter Nine

  Neil stood up so quickly his knee bumped the table, rattling the tea tray so that the liquid sloshed. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at Grace, fists clenching and unclenching. It was easier to watch his struggle than to deal with my own. I’d barely gotten my head around the fact that Grace, sweet, soft spoken Grace was biologically related to the monster who’d shattered my illusions of how all cops were supposed to be good guys, heroes, like Neil.

  Grace and her mother made no sudden movements, they just simply sat and watched us, waiting for one of us to make the next move. Obviously they’d wanted this encounter, had positioned Grace into our household to get us here. Why?

  Neil looked ready to drag me from the room by my hair, baby or no baby.

  “It’s okay, love.” I patted his leg gently. “How about you sit down for a bit and we’ll find out why they wanted to talk to us?”

  He turned his head and looked down at me. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  “Just talk,” I repeated. I had to balance his need to keep me safe from any and all threats with my need to find out what the women were up to and how I fit into it.

  Neil didn’t like it, everyone in the room could see his reluctance, but slowly, inch by inch, he sat back down.

  “Bradley Patterson was my father,” Grace began, “But I never knew him.”

  “I wanted it that way.” Adelaide put in. “We were only together once. When I found out I was expecting, I told him the news. He refused to believe Grace was his. Told me to go pin the blame on some other guy. I put his name on Gracey’s birth certificate mostly out of spite.” She reached out a hand and Grace took it. From my position it was hard to determine if it was a show of solidarity or one meant for support.

  “We moved here and I got a job as a receptionist. Grace went to school to become a nurse. I hadn’t any inkling of what had become of Bradley Patterson until I read about his death in the newspaper.”

  “It caught us both off guard.” Grace said. “Even though he was never a part of my life, that he could be responsible for all that destruction and death. It haunted me.”

  “You’re a good girl.” Her mother patted her hand. “Ain’t your fault your mother was a bad judge of character.”

  “Join the club,” I muttered.

  They both looked at me, Grace with a tentative smile. Adelaide flat out grinned. Neil sat stone faced, not at all part of the bonding moment.

  Grace continued her tale. “I couldn’t keep up at work anymore, the hours, the push pull between patient care and administrative politics. After his death I just felt kind of...deflated. I needed a change, something that was a little more connected to life. After what he’d done, I felt like it was on me to bring good into the world. A friend of mine from nursing school had become a doula and she got me hired by the same agency.”

  “What does this have to do with Maggie?” Neil shifted in his seat, looking ready to leap up again at any moment.

  “After what happened, we sort of followed your exploits.” Grace looked sheepish. “Not in a stalker sort of way or anything. More because we wanted to make sure you were all right after what happened.”

  “What’s the verdict?” I asked tongue-in-cheek.

  “Did you really exorcise a ghost?”

  I nodded. “About the only exercising I manage. Other than baby making, of course.”

  That got an actual laugh from Adelaide. “Girl, you’re a pip. Gracey didn’t tell me you were such a hoot.”

  I focused my attention on Grace. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me who you were right from the get go.”

  Grace’s gaze focused on my belly, a slight frown pulling her eyebrows together. “Honestly? I didn’t want to take the chance you would refuse, that it would be too weird. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like everything I’ve done has lead me to this point. If I can help bring your baby into this world then maybe I’ll finally have undone some of the damage my father did.”

  In a way I was touched. These people who had never even met me were concerned about my well-being. Again, the point didn’t seem to resonate with Neil at all so for his sake I cleared my throat and asked, “So, just to be clear. There are no maniacal revenge plots being hatched? No harm intended to me or mine?”

  Grace looked me square in the eye and said, “Absolutely not. I desperately want to help in any way you feel comfortable letting me.”

  I turned to face Neil.

  “No.” Neil said and stood. The maneuver was more deliberate the second time around. More final. “Good afternoon, ladies. We’ll arrange to get you your things, Grace. No need to come back to the house.”

  I could always tell when Neil was about to lose it. His sentences get shorter and more to the point, his manners beyond reproach.

  Grace’s face fell but she nodded, accepting the verdict. “I understand.”

  Neil reached down and pulled me up off the couch and steered me to the door.

  “Wait a second.” I let out a puff of air as he pushed open the front door. “Can we at least talk about this, please? She doesn’t have to stay wit
h us.”

  Neil ushered me forward as fast as my weeble-like form could wobble. He said nothing but tension radiated from him like heat from the sun. The man was on the ragged edge as it was but finding out his mother had placed a connection to one of my misadventures in our home to assist with the birth of our baby had him ready to snap.

  “I can drive,” I offered as we reached the car.

  Neil said nothing, just opened the car door for me and held it, waiting.

  This was bad. The longer his silences stretched, the bigger the fallout when he finally detonated.

  I situated myself against the pillow and blanket and buckled my seatbelt. Neil shut the door, rounded the front bumper and climbed behind the wheel.

  “You’re acting like a lunatic.” I informed him.

  He shot me a poisonous look and turned the engine over and pulled onto the street.

  We made it halfway back to Hudson before he spoke. “Maggie, you can’t really be considering having her help you give birth.”

  I said nothing. Two could play the silent game.

  “It’s ridiculous. What would Dr. Bob say?”

  “Oh now we’re trusting Dr. Bob’s judgment?” Okay maybe one could play the silent game. “Neil, she’s not her dad. She never even knew him. She’s completely innocent.”

  “Completely innocent?” Neil passed a little too close to a Toyota Tacoma and got a blared horn and a one fingered salute for his trouble. “Let’s count what we know about her, really. She’s a liar.”

  “She had a reason.” One that made sense, when given in context.

  “Two her father was a murderer who tried to kill you.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “She’s a good person. You saw her calm me down last night.”

  “Three,” he pressed on, undaunted. “She showed up right before Eric is murdered, a fact you pointed out to me yourself. And after all of that, you’re saying you want her in the delivery room with you?”

  “I don’t have anyone else!” I shouted, frustrated that he refused to listen to calm and reasonable Maggie, so I had to resort to over-emoting harridan Maggie.

  Neil scowled as though I was being ridiculous. “You have me.”

  “You’re even worse than I am!”

  “Am not.” He looked as though I’d insulted him.

  “Are too.”

  “Maggie.”

  “Neil.” I folded my arms over my chest. Having played the I know you are but what am I game with Marty since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I could wait him out.

  Neil pulled in to a Dunkin Donuts parking lot.

  “You can’t bribe me with doughnuts. I’m supposed to be watching my carbs.” My tone implied that he was an idiot for not knowing and that Grace would have known. Mature Maggie had officially left the building and was hightailing it to the Bahamas.

  “I’m not trying to bribe you with anything. I just want to stop so we can have a conversation without wrecking the car. What do you mean, you don’t have anyone else?”

  I tried to turn so I could look directly at him. The seatbelt was in the way. I cursed and struggled and finally whipped the stupid thing off. The metal buckle glanced off the window with a crack. I winced and inspected the area, worried I’d broken the glass.

  Neil took my hand in his. “Talk to me, Uncle Scrooge. What is it you want?”

  I cleared my throat, trying to form words around the lump that’s neatly choking off my air. “I want what I can’t have. I want to not be pregnant for another freaking minute. I want to sail through labor like it’s no big deal so we can get on with our lives instead of this interminable transitional phase of ick! I want someone to talk to about what’s happening to my body who really gets what I’m going through.” My lip trembled as I remembered the way Grace clung to Adelaide’s hand. “I want my mom.”

  The sobs broke free.

  Neil made a sound like a wounded animal. He tried to pull me to him. It wasn’t easy. The center console was in the way and it took him a bit of maneuvering to get his arms around me. I blubbered and wept in great noisy gasps, soaking his shirt with my tears.

  He held me close, refusing to let go. I knew that even if I went to pieces Neil wouldn’t rest until he found a way to put me back together. It tapered off slowly, the steady stream of tears thinning until only a damp streak of salt was left behind.

  “Well,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “That was unexpected.”

  Neil took a deep breath. “It’s okay, you know. To miss her.”

  I shook my head, still wiping away the evidence of my latest emotional breakdown. “What’s the use of wanting something you can’t have?”

  “Maggie,”

  “No,” I snapped at him and at myself. “It doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m scared all right? I’ve had so many narrow misses, more close calls than most people get in a lifetime. So I don’t get to fall apart because I’m afraid of what’s going to happen next. You’re dead set against Grace and that’s fine. It’s probably even smart. My instincts aren’t the most reliable.”

  “Maggie,” He started, as though to explain. But I didn’t want an explanation and was in no mood to hear it.

  “Look, I get it, okay? I didn’t even realize I wanted another woman with me until Grace showed up. Sylvia’s got a full plate, your mother isn’t an option and Penny is seven hundred miles away, a distant third. We don’t have time to find a new doula. So there’s no sense in throwing a pity party because I have to do what I always do and make the best of it. Suck it up, just like I did this morning when I found out one of our neighbors had made a move on you and you didn’t tell me and then forbade me from speaking to her.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “No, you’re right. I can’t make waves, can’t put a toe out of line, can’t ask for anything that I want or need because it’ll make life too uncomfortable for everyone else.”

  Neil sat there, utterly helpless and obviously at a loss. It was a new look for him, Uncertainty. I kind of liked it.

  Eventually he turned the key and started the car, taking us back home.

  There had been a time when I leaned on Neil for everything. Financial as well as emotional support. He was my other half, what I’d always thought of as my better half. My gaze fixed on the passing landscape. Maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t been giving myself enough credit. I’d adapted to life as a military spouse, then readjusted for civilian life. When he’d wanted to move back to New England, I’d done it without complaint. I’d held the house together and for a short while, had even run my own business. I’d saved myself on multiple occasions. Neil was a good man. He was a hero in every sense of the word. And if today had taught me anything at all, it was that wonderful as he was, my husband was only a human.

  A scared one at that.

  MACKENZIE SHOWED UP just in time for dinner, a file in one hand and sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Something smells good.”

  “Peppered steak. The normal people can even have rice with it.” I grimaced as I stirred the pot. Freaking carbs. Dieting bit the big one.

  “I guess that leaves Mom out,” Mac quipped from the kitchen table.

  “Hey kid, I didn’t realize you were going to be here.” Mother wrapped an arm around her daughter before shucking her leather coat.

  “Mac’s moving in,” Kenny said helpfully. “To keep an eye on us.”

  Mac put a hand on his shoulder. “Just when the baby’s here.”

  “And who’ll keep an eye on me?” Mackenzie raised a red eyebrow.

  “You’ll have to rely on the mercy of strangers.” Mac said.

  “You see this?” Mackenzie chucked a thumb at her offspring while addressing me. “You give them life and this is what you get back.”

  “Well, it’s too late to turn back now.” My back ached from standing at the stove, I was tired and hungry and just wrung out like an old dish sponge. “Kenny, set the table.”

  “It’s Josh’s turn,” Kenny protested.
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  Mac put a hand on his shoulder. “What did we decide about helping your Mom out?”

  “Not to argue.” Kenny repeated. “I’ll go get Josh.”

  “Nice try, mini P.I.” I shook my head. “They’re hopeless, but I appreciate the effort.”

  “Where’s Neil?”

  “He took Atlas for a drag around the block.” Walking the exuberant Great Dane wasn’t easy but given his dark mood, Neil might’ve been the one dragging Atlas down the street.

  “Bleck, exercise. Bane of my existence. No, wait, that’s my mother.” Mackenzie helped herself to the pitcher of cucumber water.

  “Tell me about it.” I gestured to the file in her hand. “What have you got there?”

  “Everything you never wanted to know about Jamie Greer, sleaze bucket snake oil salesman extraordinaire.”

  “You could have just emailed it to me.” Mackenzie lived and worked in East Boston, it was an hour and a half round trip for her to see us.

  “Then I wouldn’t have gotten dinner. Besides, I was hoping you could get me in to see Sylvia.”

  “Tonight?” I glanced at the clock. “You’re serious?”

  She nodded. “One of the apartments in our building is opening up. I wanted to offer it to her, in case she didn’t want to go back...home.” She chucked a thumb next door.

  “Really?” Mac asked. “Which apartment.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Did something happen to Nona. Or Grams?”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” Mackenzie’s face was turning as red as her roots.

  Mac stared at her for a beat. “No.”

  “What?” Her mother feigned innocence, all big green eyes and phony sincerity.

  “I’m missing something.” I removed the food from the stovetop and ladled it into serving bowls.

  “Mom’s shacking up with the downstairs tenant. They’ve been on again off again for years.”

  “It’s complicated.” Mackenzie said. “And we’ll talk about it later, Mac.”

  “You’re not redoing my room, are you?” Mac asked. “What if I’m a spectacular failure with the job market? I might need to move back home.”