by J. R. Ripley
I fingered the handle of my mug. “Virginia . . . I seem to remember her. Gosh, she was old even when I was a kid.”
Kim nodded. “Ninety-two years old when she died.”
“She died? I didn’t know.”
“Yes. It was a couple of months before you returned to Ruby Lake.” Kim’s face took on a funny expression.
“What?”
“Well, it’s kind of sad, really.”
“This whole day has been sad.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “Spill it.”
“Virginia committed suicide.”
“Suicide!” My arm shook and I spilled coffee all over the table. I jumped up and grabbed the dishcloth hanging over the edge of the sink. I wiped up the spill, then rinsed out the dishcloth, wrung it out, and hung it over the faucet.
“Why would a ninety-two-year-old woman commit suicide?” I asked, following Kim out to the living room, where she threw herself down on the sofa and stuffed a pillow behind her neck.
“I don’t know.” Kim’s fluffy yellow slippers dangled over the side of the couch. “But the police found her hanging in her garage.”
“Hanging?” My hands went involuntarily to my neck.
Kim nodded. “From the rafters.”
I settled myself on a big chair near the cold fireplace. “Did she leave a note?”
“I have no idea.” Kim’s mouth stretched open in a yawn. The stressful day was starting to catch up with her. “Anyway, when Virginia died, a widow with no children—”
I leaned forward and pulled off my shoes. “What about a will?”
“I was just getting to that. With no immediate family of her own, she left everything to Tyrone’s kids.”
I let out a breath. “And the three of them were free to sell Kinley’s Christmas House Village.”
“Finch’s Christmas House Village,” Kim said with dismay. “And now I can never show my face in town again.”
“You? I can only imagine how Mr. Belzer must be feeling. Christmas House Village was his listing, after all, right?”
“Yes. I spoke with him several times on the phone today. He says he was as completely blindsided by Finch’s actions as I and everybody else was. He said several townspeople have already come to his office and his house to strongly express their opinions.”
“I’ll bet. I can picture the barbed comments he must have endured from the likes of Mrs. Fortuny and all the other disgruntled employees, soon to be former employees, of Christmas House Village.”
Kim nodded her agreement. “And don’t forget everybody else in town who sees Christmas House Village as a Ruby Lake institution. Once everybody hears it has been sold—”
“News does spread like wildfire around here.”
“Yes, and when they also learn that the new owner is renaming Christmas House Village for himself”—Kim dragged her teeth over her lower lip—“things are bound to get worse.”
I forced a smile I wasn’t feeling. “I wouldn’t worry about it. In a day or two the whole thing will have blown over.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course.” I slipped back into my shoes. “Get some rest. I have to go. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
“Fine.” Kim picked up the TV remote from the coffee table and hit the power button. The TV came to life.
“You are coming in tomorrow, right?” I asked. Kim was scheduled to work half the day at Birds & Bees.
Kim nodded.
I said goodbye and left through the kitchen, grabbing my coat and bundling up before exiting. I had not wanted to say it to Kim because she was distressed enough already, but she was probably right.
If the scene outside Christmas House Village and the sentiments of others like Mrs. Fortuny were any indication, the situation was bound to get worse.
4
“Did you know that Virginia Johnson took her own life, Mom?” I was driving my mom to the doctor’s office and we were nearly there.
Mom turned suddenly, taking her eyes off the passing scenery. “Where did that question come from, Amy?”
I kept my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel. We were on our way to Dr. Zann’s office. Dr. Zann had been treating our family here in Ruby Lake for years. He’d given me all my childhood shots.
“I was just wondering. I was talking to Kim the other day. She told me what happened to her.” I took a left turn and pulled into the parking lot of the tan brick office building. “So you knew?”
“Yes, of course.” She made tsk-tsk noises. “Such a tragedy. Why on earth are you asking about Mrs. Johnson? To tell you the truth, I don’t even like to think about such things. Too depressing.”
I smiled. Mom was very sensitive about the subject of death. When we lost Dad, it had hit her hard. Now she was seeing Ben Harlan, Derek’s dad, on a casual basis, but I felt there was something more than mere companionship developing between them.
I grabbed a parking space and helped Mom down from the minivan. She insisted she did not need my help. My mother suffers from muscular dystrophy; though, so far, it had expressed itself in a relatively mild form.
“I hate these annual checkups,” Mom complained as we strolled arm in arm up past the row of late-blooming lavender azaleas that flanked the sidewalk leading to Dr. Zann’s medical office.
“I know you do, but it’s important.” We went through this same discussion on every visit. I let go of my mother’s arm and pulled the door open for her. “Let me help you with your coat.”
A glass partition slid open and we stepped inside the office. “Hello, ladies,” called the doctor’s wife and receptionist, Nellie Zann.
“Hello, Nellie.” Mom unzipped her blue parka and handed it to me.
I waved to Mrs. Zann, hooked Mom’s bulky coat on the coatrack, then did the same with my own coat while Mom signed in at reception.
Nellie Zann checked off her name and told her she could go on back to examination room two. That was one of the things I liked best about Dr. Zann’s office. It was small and cozy, only two exam rooms. Dr. Zann was not part of some big corporate medical group filled with unknown faces.
There were only eight chairs in the waiting room and seven of them were empty. An elderly gentleman in a thick coat snoozed, the back of his head pressed against the striped wallpaper.
I took a seat in the sun near the window and flipped idly through a recent history magazine—Dr. Zann was something of a history nut.
Mrs. Zann answered a phone call, then stuck her face through the reception window. “How’s business, Amy? Is everything going well?” Mrs. Zann was a cheerful woman with a rosy complexion. Her coppery-red hair and chestnut-brown eyes brought the image of a pheasant to mind.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ve been meaning to come check out your store,” Mrs. Zann said. “I’ve been telling my husband how nice it would be to have a bird feeder outside the office. It would give me something to look at when things are slow. But Richard says that with winter coming on there’s hardly any point.”
I set down my magazine and walked over to the counter. “That’s not the case at all,” I replied, happy for a chance to talk birds. “It’s equally important to provide a source of food for the birds in the winter as it is any other time. Sure, there are fewer birds around, but sunflower seeds alone can provide a high protein, high energy food source to help them get through when other types of food are scarce.”
“I’ve made up my mind then,” Mrs. Zann said with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m coming in no matter what the old grouch says.”
I laughed.
“Tell me,” began Mrs. Zann, “is Esther Pilaster still living with you?”
“Oh, yeah.” When I’d bought the three-story house with the intention of turning the first floor into my bird lover’s general store, Esther was already living there as a renter. She�
��s still there. She is now working for me at Birds & Bees, too. Mom hired her. Mom, along with her sister, my aunt Betty, was a silent investor in my business. Somewhere along the line, the silent part of that expression had gotten lost. “Is Esther a patient of yours?”
Mrs. Zann nodded. “Practically everybody in town is. Especially if they are over sixty-five years old. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“When’s the last time you had a checkup?”
The corners of my mouth turned down. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
Mrs. Zann’s hands went to the computer keyboard. “How’s next Tuesday? I have a ten thirty open.”
My mind went through a million reasons to decline, but I couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse. “Fine.” I sighed. “You got me.” The doctor’s wife wrote out a reminder card and handed it to me. I slipped it into a pocket of my purse. “Was Virginia Johnson a patient?”
Mrs. Zann pulled her lips tight. “Yes, the poor woman passed away. That was some time ago, as I remember. Why do you ask now, Amy?”
“I only heard about her passing from my friend Kim the other day. I had no idea.”
“You had been away from home a long time.” The phone at her desk rang and Mrs. Zann raised a finger to me while she answered it. After making an appointment for the caller and entering it on her computer, she turned back to me. “Now, what were we talking about?”
I leaned my arm on the counter. “You were telling me about Mrs. Johnson. Had she been depressed before . . . you know?”
Mrs. Zann’s gaze darted to the waiting room. Satisfied that it was empty but for the napping gentleman, she said, “No, not so as I noticed. Maybe Richard would know better.”
The doctor’s wife bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t say, but she is dead so it can’t hurt to tell you that for a ninety-two-year-old, Virginia Johnson was in reasonable health. I mean, she had the usual problems, a bit of a weak heart, osteoporosis, and her rheumatoid arthritis was quite bad, but it was under control.”
“But not particularly depressed?”
Mrs. Zann shook her head. “No, yet who is to say what somebody else is really thinking or feeling? She was old, perhaps very lonely.” She focused her eyes on me. “Maybe one day she simply decided she’d had enough. But as I recall, Richard was just as surprised as I was that she chose to end her life that way. As we all were.”
I nodded. “I guess hearing about Mrs. Johnson just started me wondering about my mom.”
“Your mom?”
“Don’t get me wrong, she seems happy enough.” My eyes drifted toward the examination room. “But what with losing Dad and the muscular dystrophy . . .”
Mrs. Zann smiled gently. “You worry that Barbara might suffer silently from depression and . . .”
I nodded once more. There was no reason to finish the sentence.
“I wouldn’t worry about your mother.” Mrs. Zann reached up to the window and patted my arm where it rested on the counter. “I think she’s in good hands, especially with you back in town.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“As for Virginia Johnson, bless her soul, and I know this might sound like a strange thing to say, but maybe her going when she did was for the best.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m not sure Virginia would be very happy to learn that Kinley’s Christmas House Village has been sold to an outsider.”
“You heard about that?”
“Who hasn’t?” Mrs. Zann turned at the sound of my mother’s approach from the back hall. “It’s practically all the whole town’s talking about.”
“What’s the whole town talking about?” Mom inquired, as she appeared from the hall and handed Mrs. Zann a printed form.
“Christmas House Village,” I answered.
“I would think there are more important issues to think about than that,” said Dr. Zann, walking up to stand beside my mother. Richard Zann stood just over six feet and, though in his early sixties, remained active. I often saw him biking around town. He still managed to have all his hair, too. “You, for instance, Barbara, need to see that you get more exercise. A good long walk several times a week should do the trick.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Mother said rather unenthusiastically.
“Good idea,” I said. “You can accompany me on some bracing crack-of-dawn bird walks.”
Mom raised one eyebrow. “If by crack of dawn, you mean nine a.m., and that walk includes coffee and bagels, I just might take you up on that, young lady.”
We all laughed.
Dr. Zann wrote out a prescription and handed it to my mother. “Be sure to have Dr. Ajax send over the results of your exam when they’re ready, Mrs. Simms.”
“I will.”
“What exam?” I asked as Mom came through to the waiting room. I grabbed our coats and helped my mother into hers before zipping up my own.
“Dr. Ajax is my neurologist. I have an appointment with him coming up.”
I narrowed my eyes at her as I held open the door. “Is everything okay, Mom?”
“Of course.” She patted my arm. “It’s an annual thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Dr. Ajax’s specialty is MD. I see him once every year. Sometimes more, if necessary.”
“The name doesn’t sound familiar.” We walked out to the parking lot and I unlocked the minivan and helped Mom up, then went around to the driver’s side and climbed inside, starting up the engine to get the heat going.
“He’s with Rheumatology and Neurology Associates over in Swan Ridge.” Mom stuck her hands in front of the air vent, letting the warm air seep into her skin.
“What happened to that specialist you were seeing in Raleigh?” I backed up the minivan and turned toward the street entrance.
“I heard good things about Dr. Ajax, and his office is much closer. So far, I’ve been very happy with him.”
“As long as you’re happy with him, I’m all for saving a two-hundred-mile trip.”
“Speaking of trips . . .”
“Yes?”
“Would you miss me if I was gone?”
“What kind of question is that?” I pressed my foot down on the brake. “Of course I’d miss you.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re not thinking of doing anything crazy, are you?”
“What’s so crazy about going to Florida?” Mom said, nonplussed. “It’s warm there.”
“Florida?” I checked the street and eased up on the brake. “I thought you were talking about . . .” I should have known better. All this death and depression had been getting into my head.
Mom turned in her seat to face me. “About what?”
“Lunch,” I said. “I’m crazy hungry, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and it’s my treat.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” Was Mom really thinking of moving to Florida? I had just moved back to Ruby Lake to be with her. Was she actually considering leaving her lifelong home? “What are you in the mood for?”
“Diner food.”
“Ruby’s it is.”
We returned home and went straight to the popular diner. Over burgers, we talked. “What’s all this about Florida, Mom?”
Mom played with her French fries. I wasted no time with my onion rings. I ate three of them in a row and my hand dove back into the basket for number four like it had a mind of its own.
“It’s warm there.” Mom pinched her coat closer as if to make her point, although the diner was plenty warm. A cup of mint-green tea steamed away on the saucer beside her.
“If that’s what you want.” I nibbled at ring number four. “I’ll miss you.”
“It would only be for a couple of months in the winter.”
“Oh!”
“What? Did you think I meant permanently?”
“You had me worried.” I waved my onion ring at her. “But only for a second.” I bent the ring in two and placed it in my mouth and chewed. “Florida, huh?” I washed the fried ring down with strawberry milkshake. It’s important to get a dose of dairy every day. “What about . . .”
“What about what?”
“You know,” I said, feeling a bit uncomfortable. Mom and I are close, but we have never really talked about her relationship with Ben Harlan.
“I’m not sure.” Mom sipped her tea and looked out the window. “You know how I felt about your father, still do,” she said, blinking several times as if to stem the flow of tears.
“I know.” I reached across the table and patted her hand. Then I borrowed a handful of her French fries.
“Ben’s lovely. We’ve become dear friends.”
“Anything more than that?”
A smile crept over my mother’s face. “Right now, a dear friend is the best for me.” She picked up her burger and took a small bite. I followed suit. “It’s what’s best for you that I’m most concerned with, Amy.”
I was taken aback. “Don’t worry about me, Mom,” I assured her. “I’m doing great. Business is slow, admittedly, but it’s steady.”
“I know, and I know you’re going to make a big success of it. It’s your personal life I’m talking about.”
“What about my personal life?”
“You live with your mother. I don’t want to be in the way.”
I leaned back, pressing my hands against the edge of the table. “So, is that it? Is that what all this Florida talk is about?”
I tilted my glass and sucked at my thick milkshake through its fat paper straw, then wiped the strawberry ice cream from my upper lip. “Well?”
Mom studied the burger on her plate, lifting the top half of the bun and readjusting the lettuce leaf and tomato slice. “You and Derek are getting close and, don’t get me wrong, I think that’s wonderful but . . .”
“You’re worried about being in the way.” I snorted. “You’ll never be in the way. I love living with you, Mom.”