“She looks like a walking cadaver,” Ben said, as they literally ran down the steps.
“I was going to say anorexic,” Darby said.
They were outside, both of them aware that Bella was watching them from the upstairs window.
“Ben, what’s wrong with your father?” Darby asked, as she buckled her seat belt.
“I don’t have a clue,” Ben said grimly. “I’m going to find out, though. Off the top of my head, I’d say his last stroke left him in this condition.”
Darby dug into her purse. “Maybe this will help. I copied his medical chart. There was a little office off the bedroom. I guess your father or someone uses it for business because it had a computer, a phone, and a fax machine as well as a copier. Maybe the nurse uses it to stay in touch with your father’s doctor.”
Ben grinned. Darby’s heart picked up a beat. “Damn, you did that right under my nose, and I didn’t even see you do it. We should go into the sleuthing business.”
“I don’t think I’d go that far. Did you find out anything from your father?”
“He has difficulty talking, but he was able to blink or nod in answer to my questions. I think he might have had a series of strokes, but he seemed to understand everything I was saying. When I asked him if Bella knew about Russ’s will, he shook his head no, then yes, so I don’t know. I think we need to talk to the aunts now, Darby. Five heads are better than two.”
“I agree, but we have one more stop. We have to open Russ’s safe and get the ring for Claire. I don’t know why, but I just have a feeling we should give it to Claire as soon as we can. I know she’s sitting at home crying her eyes out.”
“Okay. Give me directions.”
Twenty minutes later a tearful Claire opened the door and literally swooped Darby into her arms. She sobbed, Darby cried, and Ben shuffled his feet. Crying women was something he didn’t know how to deal with. Mandy was tough. He seriously doubted she knew the meaning of tears. There was nothing soft or cuddly about Mandy. Now that he could openly compare her to Darby and this strange grieving person, he realized that Mandy was not only tough but hard-edged. He knew in his gut she would just move on if he didn’t go back to Mustang Island. She’d chalk it up to an interlude in her life that didn’t work out. She wasn’t the type to send Christmas cards, so he’d probably never hear from her again. A feeling of relief settled over him.
Their tears dried, Claire invited Ben and Darby into her apartment, motioned for them to sit, and asked if they’d like coffee or tea. They declined.
Claire was plain, like Ben’s sister Mary, but she wasn’t flat or unemotional like Mary. Freckles crunched against a nose that had a slight bump in it near the bridge. Her dark brown eyes were sad and red-rimmed. Her lips trembled as did her hands. She kept brushing at her short dark hair.
Probably a nervous habit, Ben decided.
The little apartment was just one big room with a roll-down bamboo blind that covered the kitchen area. He surmised the couch they were sitting on was a pull-out bed. His hands in his pockets, he fingered the key to Russell’s town house.
Ben tuned in to the conversation between Claire and Darby. He listened, but his thoughts were on his father and his stepmother.
“It was supposed to be a secret, Claire. Russ was going to give you the ring on Christmas. He had it all planned. He was going to get down on his knees and propose. He practiced on me, but I kept giggling, and finally he got mad and locked up the ring. Listen to me, I don’t want us to avoid each other because it’s too painful to talk about. We have to get through this together. School will be starting soon, and you’ll be able to fill up your days. It’s the nights when we’ll need each other.”
Ben stood up when the two women rose. He fingered the keys in his hand. He spoke for the first time. “Darby and I decided we’d like it if you’d move into my brother’s town house, Claire. We know it’s what he would want. We can see about signing over a quitclaim deed to you as soon as we get everything straightened out. Russ told me he paid for the town house outright, so you don’t have to worry about mortgage payments. Do you have a lease here?”
“No, it’s month to month. Can I go there today?” Claire asked tearfully.
“Of course you can. Do you need any help moving anything?”
Claire shook her head. “This is all rental furniture. I’ll just take my clothes, my bike, and my plants. I can fit everything in my car. You’re sure it’s okay?”
“I’m sure it’s what Russ would want,” Darby said. “Did you forget? I’m in charge.”
Claire smiled tremulously.
Ben watched as the two women cried some more, hugged some more, then patted each other on the back for comfort. They were at the door when Claire said, “Darby, how does it all work? Whoever got Russ’s heart…does…is…will the person who has his eyes see things the way Russ saw them? I need to know that.”
Darby turned to Ben. “I want to know, too. How can we find out? I’m sorry to say, I am totally in the dark in regard to the donor program. I think we’ll all feel better if we know the people who were helped by Russ’s death.”
“I’ll call the hospital and look into it, but I doubt they’ll tell me anything. I read somewhere that donor and recipient are never revealed. I don’t know why that is but I’ll try to find out,” Ben said.
He would try to find out. That meant hereally was staying. Back in the bayou she hadn’t been totally sure. Suddenly, her heart felt lighter.
A second later, Ben was heading down the wooden steps on the second floor to the alley where he’d parked the car. “Where to?” Ben asked.
“I want to go home, Ben. I need to think about all this. I need to see Willie.” Darby leaned against the door, her gaze and her thoughts far away.
The ride home to the shoe passed in silence.
The minute Ben turned off the ignition, Willie flew through the yard, his bark shrill but welcoming. Darby held out her arms to the dog, while Ben removed the safe he’d taken earlier from his brother’s house. Willie whined but wouldn’t go near either one of them. Darby watched in dismay as the retriever tucked his tail between his legs and moved off.
“He’s picking up Russell’s scent, Darby. He knows where we were.” With the small metal safe balanced on one knee, Ben slammed the trunk lid.
“Wait, wait. Don’t lock the car. I have to get Willie’s basket of toys. He’ll be okay when he gets his baby. Dogs are so smart, aren’t they?”
Darby reached into the backseat for the wicker basket of dog toys and the thick fleecy dog bed they’d picked up before going to breakfast. Willie’s well-worn teddy bear was on top. “Come here, boy, look what I have.”
Curious, the golden dog advanced, sniffed, and threw his head back and howled. A chill ran up Darby’s spine. Ben stopped in his tracks. A second later, the teddy bear in his mouth, Willie ripped across the yard and up the steps to the porch. Ducky opened the door, and Willie rushed through.
“He’s okay, Darby. He’s got his comfort toy. Russ’s scent is on it like it was on his shirt,” Ben said, and gave her a wobbly smile. It warmed her heart to know that Ben was putting on a brave face for her. “Guess I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, later,” Darby said as she walked toward the house, where Ducky was standing in the doorway.
Darby’s shoulders drooped as she trudged past her aunt and into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of sweet tea. Then she sat down at the table across from her aunt and started to cry. Ducky handed her a wad of tissues. “We really didn’t accomplish much, Ducky. The best thing was getting Willie’s bed and his baby. We went over to Claire’s and told her about the engagement ring Russ meant to give to her on Christmas. We’ll give it to her when we get the safe opened. Since I’m the executrix, that shouldn’t be a problem. Ben and I agreed she could move into Russ’s town house. That was a good thing. I think we’re probably going to give her the town house. We both agreed it’s what Russ would
have wanted.”
“That sounds just perfect, Darby,” Ducky said.
“We had lunch. That was nice. Ben…Ben’s really nice. Then we went to his father’s house. There’s something going on there, Ducky. We only got in because Bella wasn’t there. Lord, you should have seen her when she came home to find us there. I…you aren’t going to believe this, Ducky, but I jabbed the hateful nurse with a hypodermic and knocked her out cold. Mr. Gunn was…pathetic. He has difficulty speaking, but Ben was able to communicate with him. We aren’t sure if Bella knew about the will or not. Mr. Gunn intimated she did, but then seemed confused, so we aren’t sure. He seems to be on a lot of medication.”
“Well, that certainly sounds like a jam-filled day,” Ducky said.
“You haven’t heard the best part. I told you last night what transpired at the bayou yesterday. Well, Bella said the Preservation Society gave her a provisional license to move the heavy equipment into the shoe. She plans to start demolition the minute she receives her conditional license. The society has to take a formal vote next week. She was gloating like it’s a shoo-in for her. I don’t know, Ducky, I suppose it could happen. I’ll vote no. Simon will vote no. I don’t know the other members. You, Diddy, and Dodo will have to do some campaigning. Otherwise, she wins.”
“Over my dead body,” Ducky huffed.
Darby drained her glass and set it in the sink. “Do you want to hear something strange, Ducky? I didn’t really think about Russ that much until we got to his town house. When I was at the cemetery planting the flowers I was there but I wasn’t there. Does that make sense? When I was with Ben having breakfast or in the car, it was different. It was all so surreal. Now I feel guilty. You don’t think I’m having a nervous breakdown, do you?”
Ducky wrapped her arms around her niece. “No, sweetie, you are not having a nervous breakdown. What you’re feeling and thinking is normal. Run along and do what you have to do. I’ll be here thinking about dinner this evening.”
Darby turned around. “But you can’t cook, Ducky.”
“I know. That’s why I said I would bethinking about it.”
In spite of herself Darby laughed. Now,that was normal.
Thirty minutes later Darby was in the workroom that ran the entire length of the garage. Triple French doors in the back provided all the light she needed as she sawed, nailed, and painted her Darby Lane Creations.
Wide, sturdy shelves at eye level held what Russ had always called the prototype for her little business. To her the dollhouse, fashioned by her great-grandfather for the aunts, was a treasure. It was an exact replica ofDodo’s house. She’d wondered thousands of times how many man-hours went into the creation that was now hers. The house, almost as big as a washing machine, had everything, even running water if she hooked up a tiny hose to a water bottle. When she was ten years old, and the house came to her one Christmas morning, courtesy of the aunts, she thought she was the luckiest little girl in all of Baton Rouge.
Even then, at such a young age, she knew Mary Gunn and the boys weren’t interested in playing with dollhouses, so she played alone in the evenings, all by herself, arranging tea parties for all the little dolls she’d collected. From her bed, with the night-light shining directly on the house, she’d always felt extra secure, extra safe, extra loved.
Until one day when it rained. Actually it had rained for days and days, and the aunts were at their wits’ end as to how to entertain four rambunctious children. They’d exhausted the attics’ treasures, the front-porch games, the snacks, the books, until there was nothing left to do. Cranky and out of sorts, Darby had left the boys on the front porch reading comic books they’d read fifty times already and went upstairs, Mary in her wake. Mary wanted to play checkers, and Darby wanted to play with the dollhouse. An hour into the playtime, the boys appeared, wanting to play Monopoly. She could see in her mind how the next few minutes played out. Ben reached for the game on the shelf at the foot of the bed as Russ cleared the table to set up the game. Mary was next to the huge white pedestal holding the dollhouse. Ben turned and handed the game to Russ just as Mary turned and with one slick, quick elbow move, toppled the dollhouse to the floor, where the third floor shattered into hundreds of small pieces. Darby remembered falling to her knees crying as she tried to gather up the pieces. Mary cried over and over that it was an accident. Darby looked up at her and saw the hatred in her playmate’s eyes. Russ saw it, too. She wasn’t sure about Ben, though. When the aunts came running and saw what had happened, it was Mary they consoled, not Darby, who was heartbroken. Diddy picked up the pieces, saying the dollhouse could be fixed, while Ducky gathered up the Gunn children and took them downstairs. Darby sat on the edge of her bed, using the hem of the pink seersucker bedspread to wipe at her tears.
“Shhh, don’t cry, honey. We’ll get it fixed, and it will be good as new. It was an accident. Sometimes accidents happen for no reason. It’s all this rain, it’s making us all cranky and irritable,” Dodo said.
“No, no, Dodo, it wasn’t an accident. Mary did it on purpose. I saw her knock it over. She spoils everything. Why are you taking her side?”
“Shhh, don’t say such things. Now, come on, wash your face, and let’s go downstairs and make some fudge.”
At that precise moment, Darby pitched what she called her first fit. She stomped her way to the bathroom, shouting over and over that she hated Mary Gunn, and the aunts liked Mary better than they liked her. On and on she went until she was exhausted. “I don’t want to make fudge,” she’d yelled as she flounced back to her room and lay down on the bed, where she curled into a tight ball and tried not to cry.
The incident, that’s how the aunts referred to the dollhouse breaking, was never mentioned again. It had been repaired almost as good as new. From that day on, the Gunn children never again entered Darby’s room.
Years later, she’d asked Russ if he remembered the incident. She’d been stunned at his blasé response, which was, “Oh, you mean that day Mary deliberately knocked over your dollhouse?” When she’d asked him why he didn’t tell the aunts that Mary had crashed the house deliberately, he’d just looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head. “Because she’s my sister, and you’re just my friend.” And that had been the end ofthat.
Darby hitched up the straps of her coverall, her work attire, before she moved over to her worktable. She was going to have to work around the clock if she wanted to fill all the orders that were hanging on her bulletin board. How she was going to do that with all that was going on in her life was a mystery.
Ironically, it was thanks to Russ that her little business had taken off. He told her to thinkBIG and go on from there. He said if she was going to go into business, she had to go into it knowing she wanted to be successful. Well, she was certainly that these days. People from all over the world, rich people who could afford her five- and six-figure prices for their children, clamored for her dollhouses. Just two months ago a rich industrialist from Madrid had arrived in Baton Rouge aboard his own Gulfstream to take back a dollhouse that had taken her four months to build. The man and his wife had been delighted over the dollhouse, a gift for their only child, an eight-year-old daughter. The check had made Darby giddy.
She really had to get to work, sketch out the house she was going to build for the little girl in the wheelchair, the child she’d gone all the way to Scotland to meet. The viscount wanted the dollhouse for Christmas. That meant she had four months to build it. Not quite four months, since the viscount wasn’t exactly sure when he would arrive to pick it up her. Houses were much too expensive, and fragile, to trust to just any shipping company.
Darby looked at the photographs she’d taken of the castle, shots from all angles before she set to work. From time to time she jotted notes to herself about what she had to order. This particular dollhouse—castle, actually—would be built of stone, and it was going to be a definite challenge since the count wanted it authentic, which meant she had to find just the right ston
es and polish them. Hours andhours of work. Darby sighed. Ordinarily, she loved a challenge, and this was going to be quite a challenge, but her mind wasn’t on building dollhouses or castles. Her mind was on other things. Things like how many more children she could make happy with all the money Russ had left her. She could expand her business now, hire more help. More manpower meant she would be able to cut her prices to make the dollhouses more affordable and available to more children. By taking Russ’s seat with the Preservation Society, she could tell the members she would pattern some of her dollhouses after houses the society had restored over the years. In addition, she could donate monies to help restore other houses when funds got scarce. It was a wonderful idea and one she thought the members would endorse. In her heart she knew Russ would approve. Hadn’t he been the one to tell her to thinkbig.
While it was small in the scheme of things, it was another example of how Russ’s death would help others.
Darby picked up a small piece of molding she was going to sand, then tossed it back onto the worktable. She moved back to the chair in which she liked to take her breaks. She reached over to the small refrigerator to grab a Coke. She uncapped it and drank thirstily. She leaned back, her eyes closed. Who was seeing the world today with Russ’s eyes? Who was the person who’d been fortunate enough to receive the gift of sight from Russ Gunn. Whose chest was his heart beating in? She should know that. Didn’t she have a right to know? Probably not, since she wasn’t a family member.Does Ben have a right to know? Maybe we can find out.
Darby’s thoughts moved to Ben and the day they’d spent together. What was he doing over at Dodo’s house right then, that very minute? Would he walk over later to see her? What was tomorrow going to bring? So many thoughts. She curled into the chair, closed her eyes, and was sound asleep within seconds.
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