She glanced down. “Daddy found a girlfriend and we only see him twice a month. If you find a boyfriend, I might never see you either.”
“That isn’t going to happen, sweetie. First of all, I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I only went out with Parker because I hadn’t been on a first date in over two decades. I’m not really that interested in him, and even if I were, you guys are still the most important people in the world to me. Always will be.”
She nodded, but I could see I hadn’t completely convinced her. Then she changed the subject. “Do you think Grandma didn’t want to be a mother?”
“I…uh…” I stammered, trying to figure out what to say. “I think my mother wanted other things, but back then, having children was part of being married. It was expected.”
“Is that why she only had you?”
“I’m not sure if she would have had more children or not,” I said. “But I was an emergency birth—my placenta tore away from her uterine wall—and they had to remove her uterus when they delivered me in an emergency C-section.” I paused, considering, then added, “A uterus is where babies grow.”
She groaned. “I know, Mom. We’ve already had the talk.”
“Well, to be fair,” I said in a teasing tone, “Harriet had the talk too, but she thought boys only had one testicle until she mentioned it at the grocery store. Then she and Jack discussed testicles and the anatomy of scrotal sacs while we shopped in the frozen food aisles. And that was only two years ago.” The looks we had gotten from the other customers…
Grinning, she looked up at me. “Sometimes Harriet is more book-smart than street-smart.”
Elena had a point, but I also didn’t want my daughters being street-smart about scrotal sacs. At least not yet.
“I don’t think Grandma would have had more kids,” she said. “She told me that she had you because Grandpa wanted a baby. So she gave him one.”
When had my mother told her that?
“I think Grandma likes me more grown-up,” she continued. “That’s why she’s so much nicer to me than to Harriet and Jack.”
I gnawed on my lower lip, mulling over her statement. “So you’re acting more grown-up so Grandma will like you?”
“No. But it’s kind of nice that she does.”
Maybe it was time to take Elena back to the therapist. I was feeling out of my league.
I got up and started on my eye makeup, sneaking glances at my daughter in the mirror.
“You know, I looked up Great-Grandma Sylvia after we came home last night,” she said.
I froze, holding her gaze in the mirror. “You did? Why?”
“Because you’re interested in her.”
I spun around again. This was so wrong, yet I couldn’t help asking, “Did you find anything?”
While I’d done a few searches of my own, I hadn’t found much.
“No, but there might be something on microfiche if we go to the Perry’s Fall library. I know she died in a fire, but we need to find out the date. I can ask Grandma Gertrude if you like.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll see if Nana Stella will tell me. Worst-case scenario, we’ll go to the courthouse and look up her death certificate.”
“Do you want to know about her because of the fire at Nikki’s house?”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved I wasn’t lying. “I do.”
She nodded but didn’t ask more questions.
I quickly finished getting ready. Then we headed to Richard’s apartment across town, which was within walking distance of the university. When we pulled into the parking lot, Elena said she could walk up to his apartment on her own, but I had to admit that I was curious. The last time I’d been here was a few weeks after he’d moved in. At the time, it had been sparsely furnished. Tiffany had moved in since then, and the kids had told me she’d finished decorating.
As I walked by his shiny dark gray Mustang, I resisted the urge to run my key down the side of it. I wasn’t normally prone to violence—Jack hadn’t pegged me wrong when he’d said I was usually nice to everyone—but the past few days with my kids had been painful for all involved, and Richard was living in la-la land, pretending to be twenty-five again. No, I wouldn’t key Richard’s shiny new car, but I hoped it wouldn’t bring me too much bad karma to hope that someone else would.
Richard had admired this building for years, so it hadn’t surprised me one bit when he’d moved here—high rent and all—but it had surprised me to learn he’d chosen a unit on the second floor. The building didn’t have an elevator, and Richard had a bum knee from a running accident about ten years before. He always hated climbing the stairs up to the single bedroom and bath upstairs—the old rec room for the kids, which was now Nana Stella’s room. I couldn’t help smiling to myself as we climbed the stairs now. I’d bet he’d ended up hating it.
“Why are you smiling, Mommy?”
I tried to temper my grin. “I’m just in a good mood today.”
“Why are you still wearing your hair up?” she asked. “People will probably think your stripe is cool.”
I could only imagine what Richard would say, which was incentive to take it down, but Elena and the twins still thought I only had one stripe. Oh crap. I hadn’t checked to see if there was a third one after last night’s incident.
Elena rapped on the door and a fresh-faced woman opened it, her face beaming. “Elena!”
“Hey, Tiffany,” said my daughter, casting a glance back at me, and I realized she felt conflicted over her loyalty to me and her relationship with Richard’s Lolita.
Tiffany’s gaze lifted to me and the color drained from her face. “Darcie.”
“Elena,” I said, my voice stiff. “Why don’t you go inside?”
My daughter gave me a long look, worry filling her eyes.
Leaning over, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and an encouraging smile. “It’s okay. I just want to talk to Tiffany about Harriet and Jack.”
Elena studied me for a second longer, then glanced up at Tiffany, obviously waiting for permission from her as well.
“It’s okay, kiddo,” Tiffany said, cupping her cheek. “I’ve been wanting to talk to your mom too.”
Elena hesitated for a moment before nodding and walking inside. As Tiffany shut the door behind her, I realized that while Elena had been worried about being disloyal to me, she was probably more concerned about Tiffany.
That smarted, but then my goal had been to raise thoughtful, kind people. This meant my efforts had been successful thus far.
Tiffany took a step into the hallway, the door no longer at her back. She probably wanted a quick escape. “Thanks for bringing her over. Richard or I would have been happy to pick her up.”
“Wouldn’t that be Richard’s job?” I asked before I could stop myself. “He is their father, or at least he pretends to be once every other week.”
“I’m happy to help,” she said in a chipper tone, seemingly oblivious to the fact I’d just insulted her boyfriend. Or maybe she’d just ignored it. “I love Richard’s kids.”
“My kids,” I bit out. “I’m the one who carried them in my body and pushed out heads the size of cantaloupes. I’m the one who got up in the middle of the night to nurse them, and I’m the one who cuddled them when they were sick. I’m the one who chauffeured them all to their many, many practices, and I’m the one who made sure they had a home-cooked meal every night. Richard may have provided half their DNA, and he may have pulled off the occasional parenting responsibility, but if we’re comparing how much he’s done for them versus how much I’ve done, I’m guessing they’re only ten to fifteen percent his.”
She started to say something, then stopped. “Darcie, this is a difficult situation for all of us.”
“Did you know?” I asked, seething. Obviously, I’d completely lost any semblance of self-control.
“Know what?” she asked in a whisper, her dark brown eyes wide as saucers. She looked like a raccoon caught red-handed rummaging through a trash
can.
“Did you know he was married when you started sleeping with him?” I shook my head and released a bitter laugh. “What am I talking about? Of course you knew. He invited you to our house for the TA dinners.” Richard had hosted a dinner for his TAs every semester. Of course, I’d done all the work—the food, the drinks, the table settings—but he had always provided me with a guest list. She’d been on it for the last two years, but she’d never shown up.
I gasped. How could I have been so stupid? “That’s why you didn’t come. You were sleeping with him even then.” I felt like a piano had been dropped on my head. “You’ve been sleeping with him for over two years.”
Pain filled her eyes and she took a step toward me, holding out her hand—only to realize what she was doing and stop. “Darcie, you should really talk to Richard about this.”
“What did he tell you?” I asked, my voice breaking. “What excuse did he give?”
Her glance shot toward the door and she grimaced before turning back to me. Resignation filled her eyes. “He said your marriage was all but over. That he wanted to leave you but you wouldn’t let him.”
I released a bitter laugh. “And did he stick with that story after he moved out?”
Confusion covered her face.
“That’s not what happened, Tiffany. He lied to us both.”
Her mouth opened and closed like a guppy gulping for breath. “What are you talking about?”
“Our marriage was far from perfect, and yeah,” I said, “we probably should have ended it years ago, but he never once said he wanted to leave. In fact, I was the one who kicked him out after I went to the doctor and found out I had an STI. Since I’ve only slept with one man, I knew where it had come from.”
Her face paled.
“I can see that you’re capable of math,” I said. “Which means, yes, we were still sleeping together. Not often, but at least once a month. So it sounds like he was cheating on us both.” I released a bitter laugh, then sobered. “Tiffany, you seem like a decent girl who bought into a bucket full of bullshit, but don’t feel too bad, because I believed it too. Richard lied to us both, and he screwed us both too.” I shook my head. “You’ve been nothing but kind to my kids, so let me give you a piece of unsolicited advice—run. Run as far away from this man as you can. You deserve better.”
She stared at me in disbelief for several seconds before she stood up straighter, her jaw hardening. “You just want him back.”
I laughed. “Oh…no. Not in a million years. Not if he got on hands and knees and begged. Turns out you did me a huge favor by passing chlamydia to me, because while I’d suspected for months that he was cheating on me, it gave me the fortitude I needed to pull the trigger. So thank you, Tiffany. Thank you for carting out the trash, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to keep it indefinitely. Leave it out on the curb where it belongs and find someone who won’t lie and screw around on you.”
Without another word, I turned around and left.
Chapter Sixteen
I was still furious when I pulled into the parking lot of the Perry’s Fall library, so I sat in my car and tried to think happy, peaceful thoughts about baby ducks and fluffy clouds, but in my head, the baby ducks started chasing people and biting their ankles and the clouds became a thunderstorm, creating an F5 tornado and destroying the town.
Better to just go in and try to find more answers.
I hadn’t worked with microfiche since my college days, but a librarian gave me a quick refresher and it didn’t take me long to get into the swing of things. It wasn’t lost on me that Elena could likely do this with her eyes closed, but then she also knew ten times more about my laptop than I did.
I didn’t know what year my great-grandmother had died, but according to Nana it had happened when she was in her mid-thirties, which would have put her mother in her mid to late fifties. Other than that, I only knew it had happened in spring—Nana had once mentioned that the dogwood trees were blooming at her mother’s funeral. I decided to start in January of the first possible year, work my way to the end of May, and then move on to the next year.
The current Perry’s Fall Gazette ignored national news and mostly devoted itself to the happenings in our small city, and my investigation told me things had been much the same fifty years ago. While the weekly paper never had more than thirty to forty pages, it was still tedious work, scrolling through page after page of mostly nonsense articles about county fairs, spelling bees, and prize pigs. There was the occasional burglary and theft, but hardly any major crimes were mentioned. Perry’s Fall drama was relegated to the gossip page and an advice column, both of which were written by Janet Buxton, a name I recognized as Mayor Harless’s grandmother. Janet seemed to have boundary issues, with her advice often bleeding into her gossip.
I’d been at work for over two hours before I found my first useful piece of information in one of Janet’s gossip columns.
You heard it here first. A respected member of society in Perry’s Fall has become a bit of a pyromaniac. Rumor has it ST lit a fire in Hammond Dress Shop on Thursday, and it took a lot of fancy talking by her husband and a local attorney to keep from having charges filed. Rumor also has it that her best friend, DM, was party to the whole thing. Is she a pyro too? Only time will tell.
What a witch.
ST… The initials fit my great-grandmother—Sylvia Trimble—but who was DM?
I went back to search the paper from the previous Friday, thinking I might have missed something, and did the same with the rest of the days leading up to the gossip column. I came up with a big fat nothing, but I wasn’t deterred. It finally felt like I was on the right track.
I’d press on and hope to find more. And I did. Twenty minutes later, I found a one-paragraph article titled “Local Woman Charged with Arson.” It had earned third-page placement exactly one week after Janet’s not-so-subtle accusation in the gossip column. There were no photos or anything else as sensationalistic as the gossip post, but my great-grandmother’s name was listed. The short article said Great-Grandma Sylvia had been charged with arson in relation to a fire at the home of a woman named Alberta Roscoe. My great-grandmother had been released on bail and was awaiting trial.
Two instances of fires. I was lucky I hadn’t gotten into trouble yet, but if things kept up at this pace, it was only a matter of time.
I had about forty minutes before I had to leave, so I pressed on, knowing the house fire couldn’t be too far ahead, but about ten minutes into my search, an article unrelated to my great-grandmother caught my eye—“Founder’s Day Ball to Say Goodbye to Exhibit.”
Founder’s Day Ball?
The annual Perry’s Fall Founder’s Day Ball will mark the final day of the Grecian art exhibit in the Perry Art Museum. The exhibit, which features a stunning array of Hellenistic sculptures and furniture, has been a longtime draw for tourists. The departure was confirmed at a press conference on Tuesday.
“While we’re disappointed to see it go, we’re bound to the law,” said Arthur Gagliano, the museum’s director. He stated that the museum sees an average of five thousand visitors a month, and a large majority come for the exhibit.
“This will be a great loss to Perry’s Fall,” Mayor Charlie Fink said. “We foresee a loss in city revenue but feel confident the city will not only persevere but thrive.”
The article went on to say that there was a reciprocal agreement between Perry’s Fall and Birdsboro, England, that had been set up one hundred and fifty years ago, requiring the city to return the exhibit to the small English town every fifty years. Perry’s Fall had exhausted all legal options to keep the exhibit, a fight they’d lost before. The agreement had been set up by James Randolph Perry after his abrupt departure from the town one hundred and fifty years ago.
The article continued:
James Randolph Perry was a generous philanthropist who contributed so much to our town that the city council decided to rename it Perry’s Fall in his
honor. (For those of you who don’t know, it was known as Bearfolk when it was just a trading post town.) He is most notably known for funding the city’s orchestra, the library, a nearby park, and the Perry Art Museum. Perry had the art museum built around the Grecian art exhibit, which he had discovered in a small European town before his relocation to Perry’s Fall. After his move to England, he had legal papers drawn up to establish the bizarre fifty-year travel schedule for the exhibit.
Some people believe the museum was cursed by Perry’s ghost, but that hasn’t deterred the thousands of guests who visit every year.
I sighed. Nor did it deter the museum from holding a yearly masquerade in his honor.
A few days later, Janet had written a scathing gossip column entitled “Philanthropist? More Like Philanderer.”
It’s time this town stops glorifying a known philanderer. The annual Founder’s Day Ball is held in James Perry’s honor, even though it’s a well-known fact that the man was run out of town after having relations with the mayor’s wife. My many-greats-grandmother was there to see the whole thing and the story has been passed down from generation to generation.
That sounded about as reliable as a carnival barker promising a prize.
Perry hosted the first masquerade ball for the elite citizens of Bearfolk. Then the cad had the audacity to give a speech announcing that he’d donated the property to the city, and the city council had in turn honored him by renaming the town Perry Falls. In truth, the name change had been his stipulation. The mayor and a few city council members had fought it, but the rest considered it a small price to pay for the museum.
The story goes that several people at the ball noticed the attention the mayor’s young wife, Clementine, bestowed on Perry that night. Most people thought that was the night their affair started, but the mayor didn’t find them together for another month. Whipping out his shotgun, the mayor chased a pantless Perry out of the house, Clementine chasing after him. The mayor declared that if either one of them showed their faces in town, he’d shoot them himself.
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