What Has Mother Done?

by Barbara Petty

  Aunt Dorothy entered the room carrying a tray laden with cups and saucers and a plate of cookies. “Good morning,” she said. “Coffee, anyone? I’ve just put a fresh pot on.”

  Luanne said something polite and gushy, removed her coat, and plopped herself down on the sofa. Mattie ignored Thea when asked if she’d like to remove her outer garment, so she took the one coat out to the hall closet, but when she turned around she was startled to find the six-foot-tall Mattie looming over her. “Here,” she said, shoving her coat at Thea.

  As Thea was hanging the coat up, Mattie said, “I need to use your bathroom. Show me where it is.”

  Thea resisted her impulse to point out to Mattie that she’d used those facilities before and should know where they were. But this obvious ploy for a tête-à-tête was making her curious, so she began to lead Mattie through the foyer and down the hall to the first-floor bathroom. As they passed the door to George’s office, Mattie stopped.

  Thea turned. “Mattie, that’s not—”

  “I know,” Mattie said, pushing through the door into George’s inner sanctum as if she’d been there before. “Come in here, will ya?”

  Thea stood for a moment with her hands on her hips. “Oka-a-y,” she said, drawing out the second syllable to show her reluctance. “Whatever you say.”

  Once Thea was in the room, Mattie ordered, “Shut the door, for cripes sake!”

  Thea did as she was told. Mattie seemed to relax once the possibility of being overheard was gone. “That’s better,” she said, a conspirator’s smile on her face. “Now we can talk.”

  “About what?”

  Mattie rolled her eyes. “About George’s journal, of course.”

  Thea folded her arms over her chest. “What do you know about George’s journal?”

  “Come on, Brenda Starr!” This was accompanied with a snort of disgust. “You obviously haven’t read it, have you?”

  “How do you know?”

  Mattie thrust her chin out, staring down her nose at Thea through her smeary eyeglasses. “Because, Miss Smarty Pants, if you had,” she sneered, “you’d know that George had stuff in there that will blow the lid off this town!”

  CHAPTER 36

  Was Mattie certifiably crazy? Or was it possible that George had told her things that he had shared with no one else? Thea pondered the answers to these questions as she punched out the telephone number for her computer guru. She let out a disappointed sigh as she listened to his voice mail message with its Star Wars background music. “I hope you’re not off in a galaxy far, far way!” she cried into the phone. “I’ve got to get into that journal. Help me, Obi-Wan. You’re my only hope.”

  Jedi Knight manqué that he was, Obi-Wan—whose real name was Rick—called her back within the hour. “Princess Leia!” he greeted her. “My galaxy is your galaxy.” He paused and Thea could swear she heard the swish of a light saber as he added, “I have the solution to your conundrum. It’s called Password Recovery Software.”

  “Where do I find it?”

  “On the net. You can probably download it right away.”

  “It’s that simple?”

  “Should be.”

  “Oh, Obi-Wan, I am forever in your debt.”

  “Well, you know what I want,” he said, his tone openly suggestive.

  Thea chuckled. It wasn’t as salacious as it sounded. Somewhere in her late husband’s things was purported to be an original Star Wars movie script signed by George Lucas and most of the cast. Sam had not worked on the movie, but he knew someone who knew someone. After Sam’s death, Thea had been going through a list of his belongings and she had discovered an item for an alleged Star Wars script; the only problem was that it wasn’t in the box where Sam had listed it. There were so many boxes of his things still sitting in his old office in the stable that she hadn’t been able to get to. She had promised Rick that one day they would go through those boxes together and if they found the Star Wars script it would be his. It was only fitting; he had bailed her out with so many computer problems over the years. “When I get back,” she said.

  “And when will that be?”

  “Ah,” Thea sighed. “Things aren’t good with my mother. I have no idea when I’ll be coming back...home.” She was a bit startled by the hesitation she felt at the word “home.” Was California no longer her home? She certainly couldn’t call Rockridge home anymore, so where exactly was her home? Did she even have one?

  Just as Rick had suggested, the Password Recovery Software worked its wonders and she was able to crack the extensive journal files that she found on George’s computer. But that was only the beginning, reading the files would prove to be nearly as onerous as getting into them in the first place.

  George had started with a family history, and that turned into pretty much a history of Rockridge. She was itching to skip past the duller “Grandpa Prentice set up shop on the corner of...” parts, but knew she couldn’t do that. Somewhere in this tome of George’s was hidden a secret, one so explosive that it would “blow the lid off this town,” according to the infamous Mattie. So, dammit, that meant reading every single word.

  And there were a lot of words. George did not have the gift of restraint when it came to word selection. His sentences ran on and on, his descriptions did not stop at just one or two adjectives; no, they were usually more like three and four, and he tended to repeat himself. Several times.

  In the flesh, though she had loved him dearly, Thea had always thought that George was a bit of an amiable blowhard when he was in public. On paper, without the leavening of his personal charisma, it all fell flat. There was no hint of the twinkle in his eye, the laughter about to erupt, the joke he was including you in on. It was page after page of tedium.

  But Thea gritted her teeth and continued to read until her eyes were bleary. And then, when she could no longer stand reading from her stepfather’s flat-panel monitor, she printed out a stack of pages and took them over to the loveseat in the corner of the office, polished her reading glasses, and plunged herself once more into the world according to George.

  Sometime in the early evening there was a tap on the door. “Auntie D., come in!” Thea called out.

  Her aunt entered, bearing a tray of food. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

  Thea put down the page she had been reading. “Huh! I suppose I am. I hadn’t really thought about it.” She stood up and reached for the tray, which she set down on a table in front of the loveseat. “What is this?”

  Aunt Dorothy frowned. “Somebody’s idea of baked ziti. Certainly not on a par with Carmela Soprano’s, I’m sure, but it’s not bad. Would you like a glass of red wine to go with that?”

  Thea shook her head. “No, it’ll just make me sleepy and I’ve got a long way to go with this. The water is fine.” She reached for her napkin. “I’m sorry to leave you alone with Mother all day, but...”

  “I understand,” Aunt Dorothy said. “You really need to do this, especially after what that Mattie said.”

  “How’s Mother doing?”

  Aunt Dorothy looked thoughtful. “She’s fine, but very quiet. She seems, well, she’s got that look on her face.”

  “Like she’s trying to remember something?”

  A nod. “Ever since she saw Mattie. There was something about that woman that made your mother...uncomfortable.”

  “I wish we could just ask her,” Thea sighed.

  “How are you doing with George’s journal?” Aunt Dorothy asked. “Found the skeleton in the closet yet?”

  Thea chuckled. “A few. The coin collection Mother was looking for a few days ago, well, George is of the opinion that Cousin Bud hid it away when he was a kid living here only to steal it on one of his visits to the house when he was a grownup.”

  “And did what with it?”

  “Oh, it probably paid his bar bill at the Starlite Room—or that’s what George thinks, er, thought.”

  “What else?”

  “Well, I’m starting
to read about George’s history at the Collins factory—and, more importantly, his relationship with the Collins family.”

  Aunt Dorothy’s eyebrows rose. “What about it?”

  “Well, you know how George thought that he had become such an expert on Alzheimer’s?”

  “Oh, I do,” Aunt Dorothy said. “You couldn’t tell him a thing about it. He thought he knew it all.”

  “According to the journal, he thought that Fred Collins has Alzheimer’s—and that the family was hiding it.”

  “Really?”

  Thea nodded. “Partly out of shame, he thought. That was when Peg Collins was still alive. But now, he thought Whit was continuing to hide it because of that big multinational corporation wanting to buy them out.”

  Aunt Dorothy looked stricken. “Oh, dear. I don’t like the sound of this,” she said. “George wasn’t planning to do anything foolish, was he?”

  Thea shook her head. “He doesn’t spell it out, but this is enough to make me realize that I should give Whit Collins a call. It’s about time we had that lunch together.”

  CHAPTER 37

  The next morning, Thea called Whit and made plans to meet him for lunch the following day. She was still a little too stiff and sore from her encounter with the dark car to feel up to sitting and smiling for a couple of hours while she listened to whatever bullshit he might be slinging.

  Just as she was hanging up the phone in George’s office, she heard the text message alert go off on her cell phone. She was surprised to see Joe Biggs’s name on the readout. Opening up the message, she read, “Cld u pls chk on Mom? I m worried about her.”

  “Sure,” she texted back.

  There was no reply from Joe, so she figured he had turned on his cell phone between classes, sent the text, and then immediately turned it off.

  What was going on with Annie? Thea hadn’t seen her or talked to her since the day after Bud Prentice was killed. No doubt she had heard about Thea’s being hit by the dark car, but hadn’t bothered to call and inquire about the state of her health. Maybe she’d finally dropped the charade of still pretending to be Thea’s best friend.

  Even if that was true, Thea couldn’t let Joe down. She called the Biggses’s landline and got their voicemail. She hung up before leaving a message, then called Annie’s cell and, once again, got voicemail. That was odd. Annie was one of those people who picked up on every call and never turned her cell off.

  This was unnerving. Maybe Joe had seen something in his mother’s behavior this morning and called her just to reassure himself. But when he couldn’t connect with her, he’d gotten concerned and reached out to Thea. She was pretty certain he had no idea there was any kind of rift between her and his mother.

  And, of course, Thea realized, if Annie was in any kind of trouble the rift didn’t matter to her either.

  She didn’t have the heart to ask Auntie D. to come and take care of Mother, so she got out their coats and gloves and announced to Mother that they were going to go for a short drive.

  “Where we goin’?” Mother demanded as Thea attempted to ease her arm through the sleeve of her coat, the way she would with a small child.

  “Over to Annie’s,” Thea said, and then was inspired to add, “Maybe she’ll let you draw with her magic chalks again.”

  Mother nodded, and then a small, sweet smile crept across her face as if remembering an especially pleasant experience.

  Thea paused as she buttoned up Mother’s coat and looked into her normally vacuous eyes. Was there a glint of something there? An artist’s pride, perhaps? Thea smiled back at her parent and finished buttoning the coat. As she turned up the collar, her hands brushed ever so lightly against her mother’s cheeks. Mother giggled like a happy child, and the sound reminded Thea of long-ago Christmases and tinkling sleigh bells.

  Annie’s car was in the garage and, as usual, the bay door was wide open. Thea had often heard Dan rail at his wife about such oversights but, like so much that Dan said to Annie, it had no effect on her behavior.

  So most likely Annie was home—just not answering her phones.

  Thea helped Mother out of the car and they headed for the back door. Loki was in the dog run, and barked at them in greeting as the two of them walked past. Thea felt bad ignoring the dog, but she was intent on seeing what was going on with Annie. Her plan was to knock just as if this was an ordinary visit. If Annie didn’t respond, Thea had a key that her friend had given her years ago.

  But as they approached the glass-walled studio attached to the back of the house, Thea was surprised to see someone sitting in the middle of the floor, legs splayed open in front of her, slumped up against a wooden stool: Annie.

  Mother immediately began knocking sharply on the glass door to the studio, but Thea held back, taking in the scene before her. Annie was wearing a bathrobe, but the tie had come undone, exposing a good part of her breasts and belly.

  She didn’t move, even with the loud raps that Mother continued to make on the door. Thea’s heart went into her throat as she spied a couple of empty wine bottles at Annie’s bare feet and a shattered wineglass nearby. What if she’d taken pills and washed them down with the wine? That would be a deadly combination.

  Thea grabbed the key from her pocket and used it to open the door to the studio.

  Mother pushed past her into the room, but Thea stuck out an arm and held her back. “Wait!” she said firmly. “Annie’s sick. Let me take care of her.”

  Thea didn’t pause to hear her mother’s response as she rushed across the room to her friend. She was forced to step over paintings and sketches strewn across the floor, and wondered briefly what that was about, but then bent down and focused on Annie.

  Her face was pale and sweaty, and there was a line of drool from the corner of her mouth. Was she unconscious or just drunk?

  Thea gave Annie’s cheek a few gentle taps, and was relieved to see her eyelids flutter.

  “Wake up!” Thea ordered. Despite herself, she allowed some of the anger she felt toward her friend to rise up, and the next couple of taps came off a bit rougher than she intended. The last one left a faint pink mark on the pasty white skin.

  Annie’s lids made it to about half-staff. “Wha…?” She pulled away from Thea’s touch.

  “Wake up!” Thea repeated. She reached down and tugged the two sides of the bathrobe together.

  Annie groaned, then opened her eyes. “Wha tha…?” Her gaze took in Thea, but there was no sign of recognition in them.

  “It’s Thea. I’m here with Mother,” she said. “Joe was worried about you. I told him I’d come over to see if you were okay.”

  Confusion clouded Annie’s face. “Joe?” She looked around as if her son might suddenly materialize. “He’s not here, is he?”

  “No, he’s still in school. He texted me.”

  Mother pushed forward, stepping on a couple of the sketches that littered the floor. “Can I chalk?” she burst out.

  Annie frowned. “Chalk?” Her voice was uncertain, as if she didn’t quite understand the meaning of the word. And her eyes had that same glaze Thea had seen on the face of Bud Prentice the day she had gone to the Starlite Room.

  She shrugged off that bad memory and stood up, extending a hand to Annie. “Remember? Last time Mother was here you gave her some pastel chalks to play with.”

  Mother let out an expressive “Humph!” behind Thea, probably protesting the word “play.”

  “Remember?” Thea gave Annie her other hand, and tugged.

  Annie rose awkwardly to her feet, but swayed as she hung on to Thea. “Of course, I remember,” she said, working indignation into her tone. Her eyes were growing more alert, busy taking in the embarrassing evidence lying all around her: the glass, the bottles, the scattered artwork. She let go of Thea’s hands and sank onto the wooden stool behind her.

  Thea pointed to an old, scarred desk. “Isn’t that where you keep the chalk?”

  Annie nodded. “There should be a sketchpad in
the middle drawer.”

  Thea found the materials, put them on the desktop, and led Mother over to the desk. She removed her coat and sat her down. It took only seconds for Mother to pick out the color chalk she wanted and begin drawing bold strokes across the surface of the sketchpad.

  Satisfied that Mother was happily occupied, Thea turned away to catch Annie watching her, an unreadable expression on her face.

  “I’m…” Annie began, then shuddered.

  Thea could see tears blooming in her friend’s eyes. She stayed silent, waiting.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” The words came out in a near-whisper. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Thea stood for a moment, absorbing the vulnerability of her friend’s gaze. “I’m glad, too,” she said finally.

  First, Thea swept up the broken glass. Then, convinced that her mother was fully engaged, she helped Annie upstairs and put her into a cold shower, which she resisted at first. But, as she adapted to the temperature of the water, it seemed to sober her up quite a bit. While Annie was toweling off, Thea went back to the studio. Mother barely gave her a glance as her daughter picked up the sketches and paintings from the floor and stacked them on top of a cabinet; collecting the empty wine bottles and putting them in the trash.

  Thea was in the kitchen, staring in frustration at the Biggses’s high-tech coffeemaker when Annie returned. Her hair was partially dried and she was wearing a paint-smeared sweatshirt, ragged jeans, and heavy socks. As she approached Thea at the counter, a faint smile crossed her face.

  “I’ll make the coffee,” she said. “Extra strong. I need it.”

  Eyes downcast, they listened to the gurgling of the machine, the robust aroma of brewing coffee wafting in the air around them. When it was finished, Annie filled two extra-large, handcrafted mugs for them and took them to the farmhouse table by a window that overlooked the studio. They could see Mother busily filling page after page with her “sketches.”