I also decided not to say a word about the cost. Kids are expensive. That’s all there is to it. As a parent, you hate having to deny your child anything! You want the best for him or her—and you want your child to fit in with his peers.
Closing my eyes, I tried to get in touch with my gut and my heart.
What should we do?
In truth, I couldn’t imagine leaving the boy behind. My heart ached for the child, and I knew I could love him.
But this had to be Detweiler’s decision, and not mine.
I stopped myself: That wasn’t right.
It was our decision. I would help raise Erik. Much of the burden of childcare would fall on me. Detweiler and I would function as a couple, moving forward together in a way George and I never did.
Now that Anya had spoken up strongly in favor of an early wedding, we could wipe that problem off the charts. Detweiler and I would be man and wife. I no longer worried that he would be marrying me just because I was carrying his child. I’d moved past that.
And with our marriage would come other support for our decision to bring home Erik. When Detweiler and I were wed, his insurance would help with our financial burdens.
But the emotional ones? Those would still be there.
How would Detweiler feel about seeing the evidence of Gina’s cheating on a day-in, day-out basis? Would it tear him apart?
I asked him.
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think so. I think I can separate what she did from the result. This little boy didn’t cheat on me. Besides, that’s all water under the bridge. It’s over. Has been for years. We were never really right for each other. We were just two horny teenagers playing house. We weren’t really a couple, and looking back, we weren’t really even friends. Not like you and I are. When it’s all said and done, I’m happy that she found a man who could love her and provide for her the way she wanted. From all I’ve seen and heard, Van Lauber was good to her and good for her.”
“Lorraine Lauber really is incapable of raising the boy? She can’t or she won’t?”
“She can’t. It’s just not feasible. If you met her, you’d realize how frail she is. Her health isn’t up to the task. And she’s too old, really, to be there for the long haul. Well, she’s not chronologically too old, but because of her health she is, if you catch my drift.”
I snuggled down into the sofa with Martin in the nook of my legs and tried to imagine that Detweiler was right next to me. If he were here, we could have this conversation face-to-face. I could look at him and tell what he was thinking. But this would have to do.
“Distract me,” he said. “I need a bit of breathing space. Tell me about your day. Anything interesting happen? We can come back to this.”
I told him what I’d learned about Prescott and about my new construction crew. “Anya is so tickled to be doing manual labor. It will be good for Rebekkah, too,” and I told him about Horace’s tenuous mental state.
Then I told him about Bernice Stottlemeyer. As I spoke, it became clear to me: Someone just like Bernice Stottlemeyer would try to adopt Erik or a younger version of him. Panic raced through me and I sat bolt upright. “Detweiler, we can’t let that little boy go into the system. There’s no way. We can’t let that happen!”
For a moment, there was silence, and then finally, “I was hoping you’d say that. I didn’t want to push him on you. I needed to be sure—and I wasn’t trying to play games, but I really, really needed to hear you say just that.”
In a ragged voice, he added, “I love you. I know we have hard times ahead, but that’s okay. As long as we’re in this together, we’ll make it work. As for this little boy, he needs us. I used to fantasize about adopting when I worked in the Big Brothers program. This isn’t much different, except…except…Gina asked this of me. Even though I get really angry when I think about how she lied, I can’t hate her. If our positions were swapped, I might have asked the same from her. And I know she would have done it for me. She and I were just in the wrong place and the wrong time when we married, and we were too young to know better.”
Chapter 37
The decision was made. Now we could move onto the practicalities. The questions tumbled out in a hurry.
“Lorraine will take you to meet him tomorrow? And do you still have the list?” I asked. Before he’d left, I’d sat down and typed up an exhaustive list of questions he should ask, and people he should interview.
“Two copies of it,” he chuckled. “I intend to go over your list with Lorraine. She promised to set up appointments for me to visit Erik’s pediatrician, and his camp counselor. She’s trying to set up a lunch meeting with his kindergarten teacher. I guess his nanny is working on the list of his friends and favorite activities.”
“Nanny?” Oh, to be wealthy enough to hire help!
Creating continuity would make Erik’s adjustment easier. Of course, the scrapbooker in me was thrilled to have a new subject for memory albums. My customers often asked for ideas for the boys and men in their lives. It’s comparatively easy to create a scrapbook for girls and women, but there are fewer cool products for the guys. Having Erik around would force me to re-think all our supplies. That would be good for our customers.
“I can’t believe I missed the sonogram,” said Detweiler.
“I have pictures,” I said. “But you can’t have them until you get home.”
“You are such a tease.”
“It’s a bribe so that you’ll come back to me.”
“Babe, I thought I’d made it perfectly clear. You are stuck with me. Forever and for always.”
My heart did a happy dance.
We circled back to the situation at hand with Sheila. Detweiler’s tone turned serious. “I don’t trust Prescott. He’s had his eye on Robbie’s job for too long. He and Mayor White would love to drum up some sort of a crisis to make Mayor White look like a hero. What’s Hadcho have to say about all this?”
“I haven’t seen Hadcho since we were all interviewed at the police department. Why?”
“He and Prescott have gone ‘round and ‘round.”
“Tell me more.”
“Prescott has spread rumors that Robbie is a bigot. Remember that big splash in the newspapers last year? That source that spoke off the record? I’m pretty sure it was Prescott, which is weird, really weird because he’s the real problem in the department. He made some crack about how Hadcho should be paid with wampum.”
I knew that Hadcho had Native American blood in him, but other than to admire his coloring and high cheekbones, I’d never given it another thought.
“In this day and age, who makes comments like that?”
“An idiot.” Detweiler sighed. “An idiot who’s now in charge of an investigation that could reflect poorly on his supervisor.”
Chapter 38
Tuesday/Three days after the wedding…
Kiki’s house in Webster Groves, Missouri
The next morning Anya woke up bright and early, ready to knock down my wall. Her enthusiasm for this project tickled me.
She wasn’t alone. When I swung by the house in U City, Aunt Penny stood on the curb, hopping from one foot to the other. When we pulled into the parking lot of Time in a Bottle, Rebekkah was already there, bubbling with excitement.
At eight on the dot, we opened the front door to Roy Michelson, the general contractor, who looked approvingly on Aunt Penny, Anya, and Rebekkah standing at attention with their hard hats under their arms and their safety goggles dangling from around their throats, like a troop of soldiers ready to do battle.
My crew looked cute as all get-out. Using letter stickers, I’d spelled each person’s name on her helmet. Just for fun, I added stickers of butterflies, ladybugs, and flowers. Once the ladies put on their helmets, Roy’s plain orange hat beamed like a beneficent sun in the midst of a field of light-hearted insects and flowers. I posed all my workers and took a photo that would make a super cool scrapbook page.
Despite the
dark circles under Rebekkah’s eyes, she seemed ready and raring to go. I ached to ask her if she’d heard from Rabbi Sarah, but I figured that could wait.
“You’re certainly getting your money’s worth,” said Aunt Penny, looking over my shoulder at the photo.
“Yes, I am,” I said proudly.
“Guten morgen,” Margit called from the backroom. She was on a one-woman mission to teach all of us rudimentary German. As a result, I’d expanded my vocabulary to include rolade, stollen, spatzle, and sauerbraten. I was eager to expand my vocabulary, especially if it involved food.
“Ja, we are here,” I sang out in return.
She came out to admire our workers. In their worn jeans and tees, they were the picture of a proper construction crew. “Good. I like the helmets. Being safety conscious is good. Kiki, I will do the paperwork first thing. Later we can talk about profitability of the crop. You have an appointment outside the store, ja?”
“Yes, a command performance at the Stottlemeyer house,” I said.
“Oh, das ist toll!” Some days Margit is more German than others. I suspected that after spending half a day with her mother, she swung a bit more toward her heritage. Since her mother’s mind is failing, the older woman often talks in her native language. That’s normal for Alzheimer’s patients. They lose their short-term memory and regress to their childhood. So rather than resent Margit’s attempt at internationalizing our happy little band, I appreciated that she had found a coping mechanism.
All three of us—Margit, Clancy, and I—had aging mothers who made demands on our time. One night over a pot of hot tea, we’d made a pact to be supportive of each other, even if that meant occasional inconveniences. For example, Clancy’s mother had fallen, and now lived in an assisted care facility. Some days Mrs. Clancy (my friend went by her family name) called the store six times in a row to ask what time it was. My mother often called to fuss at me for whatever sundry problems cropped up. The day before Sheila’s wedding, Mom had phoned to say, “The clothes washer is off balance. Can’t you come fix it?” When I explained that I was working, she got huffy. Margit’s mother wasn’t allowed to make phone calls, but her nursing aides often called with requests like, “Your mother is out of those hard candies she likes and wants you to bring her some. Immediately.”
Everything was an emergency as far as our mothers were concerned. One day when I complained about this pseudo urgency, Dodie looked up from her paperwork and said, “If you don’t have long to live, then it is an emergency, isn’t it? Time doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to you.”
“To you” not “to me.” That hit me hard, because Dodie was acknowledging that she didn’t have long on this earth either.
Thinking about my old boss put a lump in my throat. As did contemplating a change in the store. I saw Dodie’s touches everywhere I turned. She’d opened this store when scrapbooking was at its apex, and despite a downturn in the hobby and in the economy in general, she’d managed to keep it going.
Her health problems had offered me an unbelievable opportunity to own my own business. She and Horace had come to me with two possible payment plans. One would allow me to buy the business outright for a comparatively modest sum. The other was to buy the business “on contract,” making payments over back over time, which would add up to a larger sum. After last night’s crop was over, Cara and I talked about my options as we finished putting the store to rights.
“The longer pay-as-you-go contract isn’t your best option. Not when interest rates are so low. Have you thought about a business loan?” she asked.
Actually I had. After George’s death, I tried to rebuild my credit, and I’d done a pretty good job, but I couldn’t say it was perfect yet. I wasn’t sure that any bank would loan me as much money as I needed.
“I could loan you the money,” said Cara. “I have money in the bank from selling my parents’ house. I planned to invest in a business or a building or both.”
“No. That’s very kind, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that,” I told her. The evening ended with her promise to pull together various numbers for me so I’d have a better idea what this place was worth. She would also email me a list of questions I should ask Horace.
The store wasn’t mine yet, so I was taking a risk in treating it as though it were. However, I had gotten Horace’s approval to take down the wall. I took a few more photos for our blog before leaving the wrecking crew to their job. A flicker of the overhead lights informed me that the contractor had located and turned off the power to the wall, just as he had practiced the day before. Aunt Penny stopped by the office to ask where the first aid kit and fire extinguisher were. That panicked me, but she explained that she wanted to check the extinguisher’s expiry date and have both items handy “just in case.”
“Fiddle-dee-dee, I forgot to buy us tool belts,” Aunt Penny grumbled.
“Will these work?” I walked her over to a display of tool belts we’d purchased for our crafters.
“Perfectly!” she crowed, taking them from me and admiring them. “Our hammers can go there, and the pockets will work for the nails we’ll pull.”
In her Rolling Stones tee shirt, she seemed as happy as a kid with a new toy. “Hey, y’all, lookee!” she called to her crew members who oohed and aahed over their new gizmos.
“Okay, I’m off to my appointment with the Stottlemeyers,” I said, glancing at my watch. “They’re graciously allowing me thirty minutes, so I should be back momentarily.”
“Have fun,” said Anya with a knowing grin.
“Right. Rebekkah? Don’t forget to listen for early customers, okay? Margit’s got her nose in the books, so she might not hear someone come in. I should be back around nine fifteen or so. Unless I stop and buy donuts. Anyone, anyone?”
A general cheer went up from the crowd.
It was nice to know I could make them so happy!
There’s no trauma in life so awful that it can’t be erased by large doses of sugar and fat. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Chapter 39
I climbed into my car feeling slightly sneaky. I hadn’t mentioned to Anya where the Stottlemeyers lived. I knew she would feel as emotional about our old neighborhood as I did. Not surprisingly, my car made the turn into our old lane rather than waiting to turn on the Stottlemeyers’ street. I pulled up in front of our old house. Sitting there and staring, I wondered who lived there now. The family who had purchased it from me had been transferred six months later, so now the house had yet another owner. Like all real estate in Ladue, my house had sold quickly. Ladue is small in acreage, but big in prestige, so even the crummy lots (those with bad slopes, no backyards, etc.) sell for high prices. George had purchased this lot from an old school chum, and he’d gotten a wonderful piece of land at the end of a lane, nearly invisible from the main street. Only three other houses were on the same side of the street. This was the end lot, with a lovely maple tree that we carefully worked around as we built our house.
But our maple tree was gone. So were the neon flash spirea bushes usually bursting with hot pink bouquets of flowers. Of course, the purple petunias I usually planted were missing, too. There was no white ageratum either. The new owners had opted for sturdy green yews. Boh-ring! But basically maintenance free.
Whereas I’d painted our front door a cheerful blue, they’d changed it to a stodgy gray. That color choice along with the off-white bricks made the house look like an aging elephant. A lump formed in my throat. Fortunately, I hadn’t turned off my motor, so I quickly did a u-turn and drove away, while fighting tears.
Two blocks over was the Stottlemeyers’ house. There were no extraneous flowers, just yews. The front door was a shiny black. Nothing about the house seemed welcoming.
Bernice answered the door. She was dressed in a black jacket and pants. Underneath was a French blue blouse. It should have looked lovely, but the frown on her face trumped her clothing choice. In her ears she wore diamond studs. Her on
ly other accessories were her watch, wedding and engagement rings. I like minimalism, but this was absolutely Spartan.
She didn’t offer me a greeting, so I dove right in.
“I thought I’d take a photo of you and your husband in your favorite room of the house,” I said.
“He’s busy.”
“This will only take a minute, and Bonnie cleared it with you.” I kept my voice level.
“All right then,” she huffed. Moving at a fast pace, she led me down the hallway into the ground floor office. The walls had been paneled in a dark oak. The carpet was a cream Berber. The room had no personality.
Wesley Stottlemeyer looked up from his computer monitor.
I didn’t know what to expect, but he jumped to his feet and offered me a firm handshake. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he was attractive in his own way. He greeted me and tried to make small talk, but Bernice wasn’t having any of it. Each time he’d ask me a question, she’d answer it for me. When her back was turned, he shrugged and gave me a “What can I do?” sort of look.
I directed them into a pose where she was looking at the computer monitor with him. That’s when I noticed that all the books in the bookshelves were arranged by color and size. Obviously, they weren’t for reading. In fact, I was pretty sure they were fakes. No one who loves to read buys his books by size and color.
I snapped several photos. Anyone with half a brain would immediately pick up on the tension between them. I reminded myself that I wasn’t there as a marriage counselor, only as a scrapbook consultant.
“Where do you sit at night when you are relaxing?” I asked.
I knew perfectly well where the great room was, having visited this house once for a block party, but I waited.
“There’s a great room,” said Bernice.
Group, Photo, Grave (A Kiki Lowenstein Mystery) Page 13