by C Farren
“She’s worked here for a month. You were hugging her like you’d known her all your life.”
“You think I’m sleeping with her, don’t you?”
Miranda slapped him. It felt really good.
“Are you drunk?” Beppe demanded.
“Not yet,” said Miranda.
“I had hoped to work from home today. Take my time. Maybe have some fun with my wife. But you make things so difficult.”
“Is that what I am, Beppe? Difficult?”
He sighed and tried to walk away. She grabbed his arm.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just... I’m just having a hard time with how we live now. I’m not used to the big house and the staff and being wealthy.”
“I know what you mean,” he admitted. “But we deserve this, don’t we?”
He caressed her face and she smiled. At that moment she knew that he loved her, and she that she loved him. She just couldn’t get those photos out of her mind, or the way he hugged Aria, or her nagging suspicion that he was cheating her.
I could just push you down the stairs.
Chapter 2
“I’m going to call him Ozymandias,” said Sally.
“I want to call him Ronald Reagan!” shouted Sheena.
Reba sighed. “We’re not calling him Ozymandias or Ronald Reagan! Now get in the car. You’re giving me a migraine.”
The two girls got in the car, still fighting over the little cat Sally carried in a basket. Wren wondered where two five-year old children had gotten those two names from. What little girl wanted to call a cat Ronald Reagan? What was so wrong with Fluffy?
“They’re reading at a tenth-grade level,” Reba explained, sounding annoyed. “We started on War and Peace last night. I have no idea what’s going on. I’d rather be reading something with a shirtless Highlander on the front cover.”
“I know they’re weird, but you must be proud of them,” said Wren. The girls were shouting at each other now. “They’re probably going to find the cure to cancer one day.”
“Are you... are you crying?” Reba asked.
Wren was sobbing uncontrollably now. She hadn’t even realized it.
“It’s going to be fine,” Reba assured her. “We’ll take good care of him.”
“I didn’t think I’d get this upset.”
All five kittens had gone to good homes now. Benedict and his daughter Paula had one, which they called Ariel; a couple from the city had adopted two, calling them Cheetara and Panthro. Wren appreciated that. She’d been quite a fan of Thundercats when she was a child. One of them had gone to Reba and her MENSA children and finally one of them, the smallest, was staying with Wren. She hadn’t decided on a name yet.
“You’re going to be fine,” Reba insisted. “Consider this as training for when your kid goes off to college or a gap year travelling around Europe.” Wren was about to say something when Reba said, “I know you don’t have children, but you will. I can see that twinkle in your eyes. I had that same twinkle before I went to the sperm bank.”
Wren wanted to giggle. Reba’s story was hardly romantic, but it was what she’d chosen. It had worked for her.
“You think I want children?” Wren asked.
“I think you already have,” said Reba.
They looked at Paula, playing with the cats in Wren’s front yard. Paula waved when she saw them watching.
Wren smiled. “Benedict and I have been dating for nearly three months. I love Paula to bits but I don’t think I feel like a mother just yet.”
“Tell that to her,” said Reba.
Reba left her to it. Wren watched as Paula picked up her new kitten and gave it a hug. Wren smiled, the joy on the child’s face making her morning. Maybe she wasn’t Paula’s mother yet, but she was getting there.
“Hey Paula,” said Wren. “How’s Ariel doing?”
Paula grinned and said, “She wants to keep playing all the time! But I don’t mind.”
It was a Saturday in mid-March. Benedict had been called into the bar, The Good, the Bad, and the Fabulous, after a flood. He’d asked Wren if she could look after Paula while he was away. She’d gladly jumped at the chance. This would be the first time they’d been alone together, and Wren really wanted to bond with Paula. If they were going to become a family one day they needed some bonding time.
So far it had gone well. Wren had made Paula some waffles for breakfast, and then they’d watched The Little Mermaid, Paula’s favorite film. They sang along to the movie’s songs and enjoyed themselves immensely. After that they’d gone out to play in the garden with the cats. That was when Reba and her genius children had turned up to claim the last of Gracie’s kittens.
Were they having a good time?
The postman walked up to her and passed her a packet of letters.
“Thanks,” said Wren.
“How are you doing?” Dale the postman asked. “Your mom tried to invite me in for a coffee this morning. She sounded lonely.”
“I miss my dad, but we’re taking it one day at a time.”
A few months ago, Wren’s dad had been given an extra year in jail for assaulting a warden. Wren’s mother, Dot, had been given the chance to leave him and marry her doctor friend, Anthony, but she’d vowed to stick by her husband. Wren found it all very romantic, but she hated seeing her parents sad and lonely.
She kept one eye on Paula as she opened her mail. One was from a supplier for the Metropolitan, her coffee shop. They were putting milk up by 0.9 %. It didn’t sound much, but she bought an awful lot of milk from them.
The other letter was a set of two round-trip plane tickets for Milan from Bangor. They weren’t dated, so she could use them any time. They were from her old friend Miranda, who now lived in Italy. Wren had promised to come for Miranda’s daughter’s birthday in February but she’d cancelled at the last minute when Esme broke her leg.
I’m not sure I have the time to take a vacation.
It would be nice to see Miranda and her daughters again. It had been a long time. Perhaps it was time to unwind? Maybe it was a chance to try and put all those murders behind her for a while and relax at one of the most beautiful places on the planet?
“What are those?” Paula asked.
“My friend Miranda sent me some tickets to Italy,” said Wren.
Paula grinned. “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy! That’s where my gran is from.”
“I’m not sure whether to go though. I’ve got too much going on here.”
She couldn’t leave the coffee shop in the hands of Aarna and Reo (and Maureen, who worked there part time for free just for something to do). They were capable enough of running the place for an hour or so at a time, but for a whole week? It would be too much for them. They couldn’t handle it.
“You look sad,” said Paula, hugging her. “Don’t be sad, Mommy.”
“I’m not sad,” said Wren. “Just... disappointed.”
“Your mom likes fixing things. I bet she could take over at the coffee shop while you’re gone.”
Wren nodded. That was a good idea. Dot loved talking to people, plus it would give her a way to be more social and less lonely. It would end up benefiting her in the end. It was a win-win situation.
I think I’m going to Italy!
It wasn’t until Wren was sitting inside making lunch for them an hour later that she realized that Paula had called her Mommy.
“I must have imagined it,” she said, taking some whole meal bread out of the pantry. “I think I definitely imagined it.”
Fiona was sat at the kitchen table reading a book on bread making. Ever since she’d come back from Heaven, finally cleansed of demonic energies, she’d been determined to be a better baker. Wren was treated to something new every day. Not all of it was delicious, but they were edible (sort of).
Fiona nodded. “Sourdough looks easy enough. I’ll try that next.”
“You should go on a cookery show,” Benedict suggested.
The angel
blushed. “Oh, I don’t think I’m good enough just yet.” She smiled, twiddling her hair. “Do you really think so?”
Wren knew he was teasing her, but she took the comment to heart. Wren felt a little sorry for her. She was obviously struggling with something. Ever since she’d come back from Heaven Fiona hadn’t said a word about what happened to her up there other than to say she was perfectly fine. Something worrying had happened. Wren just wished her great-grandmother would open up to her instead of spending all her time making loaves and loaves of bread they couldn’t possibly eat. In the end Fiona went out every night and delivered some of her excess baking successes to the neighbors.
“Something odd happened today,” said Wren.
“Did Paula call you Mommy?” asked Benedict.
Wren looked at him in shock. “How did you know that?”
“She let it slip out last night,” said Benedict. “I don’t think she knew she even said it. It’s not a problem, is it?”
Wren didn’t know what to say. The fact that she hadn’t registered it until an hour later meant something. Was it because she had accepted being called Mommy and didn’t think anything of it?
“I’m not sure,” admitted Wren. “Maybe Paula and I should discuss it.”
“Does this mean that you two are serious?” Fiona asked.
Wren dropped her bread and stared at Benedict. They’d told each other ‘I love you’ and they’d been on well over two dozen dates. Things were going swimmingly.
“Are they serious?” Wren mused.
Benedict shrugged. “I think so.”
“I think so too. Probably.”
“Yeah. We’re probably serious.”
They both laughed. That was as much as they needed to know for the moment.
Fiona made a huffing noise and went to her shiny new beadmaker (bought on Wren’s credit card). The angel was from that era when men and women knew what they wanted from each other. Wren wished she knew, but she just didn’t, not yet. She loved Benedict, and she adored Paula. That was all for now.
“What are you going to do about Italy?” Benedict asked.
“I’ve got to go with you!” Fiona shouted.
Benedict sighed. “I couldn’t offer anyway. The bar is in a mess and needs my help. The flooding was quite bad.”
“Is it fixable?”
He shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.”
Her boyfriend’s drag bar meant almost as much to him as his daughter. He’d sweated buckets over the last decade to make the place work. It was something of an LGBTQ institution in Maine now. He had to fix it. The whole state wouldn’t be the same without it. The sad thing was Wren was pretty sure he didn’t have the money to make it what it once was.
“Wren... I lapsed on insurance,” said Benedict.
She took his hand. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find a way.”
“I can’t lose the bar, Wren. I just can’t do it.”
Chapter 3
Wren had asked to see her staff and mother at the Metropolitan just before opening on Monday morning. She needed to outline her plans for a vacation and her idea of who should be in charge. Dot was already grinning. She knew what was coming.
“Is this about that that post in Instagram?” Aarna asked.
Aarna ran the Metropolitan’s various social media accounts. She was great with stuff like that. Wren didn’t know how it worked or why but it did. Aarna could stir a whole group into a frenzy just with the right post.
“What post?” said Wren.
Aarna squirmed a little before saying, “Someone wrote that you keep finding loads of dead bodies and if you came to the Metropolitan you were either going to turn up dead or end up being a psychotic murderer.”
“That’s just lovely. All publicity is good publicity, right?”
No one answered her.
“I shamed them and made a joke of it,” said Aarna. “People saw the funny side.”
“That’s great,” Wren told her. “You really are an angel.”
Wren wasn’t sure that was the end of it, but there was nothing she could do. Aarna could handle it.
“I’ve booked a local guitar player for Friday night,” said Reo. “He came in the shop while you were at lunch on Friday. He was really good.”
“That’s great,” said Wren.
Maureen cleared her throat.
“Is there anything you want to add, Maureen?” Wren asked.
“Darcy followed me again today,” said Maureen, referring to her eldest cat, and the father of Gracie’s kittens. “I’ve tried sending him home but he won’t do it.”
“Let him come in,” said Wren, smiling. This wasn’t a problem. “He might brighten the place up a bit.”
“Good, because he’s already under the table.”
Wren looked under the table and saw scruffy Darcy sat up, glaring nastily at her. She didn’t dare stroke him. He looked to be in a mood. She hoped he wasn’t this moody with the customers. If he so much as nipped someone’s finger she’d end up being sued to oblivion and back.
“Wren has something she wishes to announce,” said Dot impatiently.
“I was getting to that,” said Wren, trying not groan. She smiled and said, “I’m going on vacation soon, date to be determined. Mother is taking over as manager while I’m away.”
Aarna tried to hide her disappointment as she said, “That’s great. You need a vacation.”
“Aarna, I trust you with my whole heart, but you know as well as I do you hate the small stuff, and my mother did run her own clothes shop for thirty years.” An idea suddenly came to her that would please all parties. ‘Aarna, why don’t you be Mom’s second-in-command? She can teach you all she knows.”
“I’d love it!” Aarna squealed, excited.
Dot didn’t look as pleased, but she’d have to put up with it now. Wren had made her decision and it was final.
I just love being in charge.
“You are under arrest!” a voice commanded.
Wren smiled. It was Keegan, her best friend. This was his first day back at work after his ordeal with Ginger. His deputies uniform looked crisp and ironed. His complexion was back to normal. He’d grown his hair out a tiny bit, though it still looked perfect. He seemed back to his normal self.
Wren knew better.
“How are you feeling?” Wren asked, taking him aside. The others got back to work. “You look okay, but you can’t fool me.”
“Dad wanted me to take more time off but I need to work,” Keegan insisted. “I got bored of all the physical therapy and psychiatrists. Even Lenny is getting on my nerves, acting all fussy and caring.”
“How are you two doing?”
He nodded. “Good. He’s helped me so much. I didn’t realize how much I missed him until I had him back in my life again.”
She made him a cup of coffee and they sat down to chat. She told him about going to visit Miranda, and he told her all about Lenny’s surprise gift of an eternity ring. He showed it to her. It was silver and elegant and absolutely beautiful.
“Looks like we’re both in really good relationships,” said Wren.
“Yeah,” said Keegan.
“So why do we both sound less enthusiastic than we should be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess... with me I can’t stop thinking about being in that fake coma. It was weird, Wren. It was like I was dreaming for days on end. I can’t get it out of my head.”
“Benedict and I getting really serious, and Paula called me Mommy, and...”
They both sighed at the same time.
“What is wrong with us?” she asked. “We’re alive and safe and happy.”
“We should be on cloud nine,” said Keegan.
“You know I was sent two tickets to Italy,” said Wren. “Come with me.”
She expected him to say no. She expected him to something about his father needing him and he didn’t want to leave Lenny or something selfless like that.
“Sure,” he said.
“When do we leave?”
She grinned. This was going to be epic. They hadn’t been on holiday together since they’d been nineteen, and then they’d had Alex and Lenny with them. It would be great to spend some time with him and Miranda. It would be just like the old days.
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