DOUBLE KNOT
Page 25
“Mother!” I grabbed them. “Are you trying to scare her to death?”
Between us, my beautiful firstborn, who I’d already told about my misguided attempt to keep her by marrying the village idiot, tried to hide her amusement, her caramel eyes dancing between me and my wildly inappropriate mother.
“Well, Davis, she needs to know what you saved her from.”
And who would ever save me from her?
Which is when I realized, the three of us on the pink eyelet bedspread Mother had tucked me under as a child, I never needed to be saved from my mother. In fact, the only path to being the mother I wanted to be, both from this point forward with Emi and with the twins I would soon deliver, was through my own mother.
I wasn’t the only one acknowledging Mother’s maternal gifts. In the hours after young David Sanders’s birth, while the rest of us were busy with the U.S. Consulate in George Town as they took Max DeLuna and Colby Mitchell into custody to await extradition, Mother stayed with Bianca. And from that moment ’til this one Bianca has called every ten minutes. To speak to my mother. “I’m sorry, David. She knows more than you.” To which Mother says, “It’s what’s been wrong with her all along, Davis. She never had a mother who mothered her, so she’s doesn’t know how.”
The mothering came full circle three months later on a Thursday morning.
I woke up in labor, slow and steady, at the beginning of my thirty-eighth week. It would be hours before my contractions were strong enough to leave for the hospital.
Bradley, in a flurry of last-minute overseeing operations of a $700 million corporation, told us he’d be right back. “Reggie and Fantasy will be here in a minute, girls, and Pine Apple, Alabama, all of Pine Apple, is on the way.” He sat on the edge of our bed and laced his fingers in mine. “Promise me you won’t have our babies until I get back.” He kissed my forehead.
“I promise.”
Emi took his place beside me with a watch in one hand, to time my contractions, and The Compass in the other. I didn’t even know I brought it home, the big blue leather-bound component of our escape. Emi opened it to find the only physical evidence of our time on Probability. She showed it to me. We smiled at the picture of Mother in her Party Suit.
Emi flipped through. “This is so cool.” Her voice a whisper. “The dishwasher.”
“What?”
“Where they put the dishwasher,” she said.
“Let me see that, Emi.”
The white stone waterfall-edge countertop to the right of the sink disappeared with the push of a button. And there was the dishwasher.
About the Author
Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, ran off and left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently. Double Whammy, her first Davis Way Crime Caper, was a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist and hit the USA TODAY Bestsellers List. Double Knot is the fifth Davis Way crime caper. You can visit her at www.gretchenarcher.com.
The Davis Way Crime Caper Series
By Gretchen Archer
Read all about it at www.henerypress.com
DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1)
DOUBLE DIP (#2)
DOUBLE STRIKE (#3)
DOUBLE MINT (#4)
DOUBLE KNOT (#5)
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