Aftermath

by Ann McMan

  Celine looked surprised. “James Lawrence?”

  Syd nodded.

  “No.”

  “Well, she did. And, apparently, he’s going to be released from Walter Reed in two weeks.”

  Celine didn’t reply right away. “That seems awfully soon,” she said in a quiet voice. “I would’ve expected him to be in rehab for at least another month or so.”

  Syd shrugged. “I guess we all should be pleased that he’s making such good progress.”

  Celine was silent until Syd looked at her.

  “But you’re not?” she asked.

  Syd shook her head. Then she threw up her hands. “I mean, of course I want him to do well. And of course I want him to be released from the hospital—if he’s ready. But this means . . .”

  Celine laid a hand on her leg. “This means he’ll take Henry.”

  Syd nodded again.

  “Does Maddie know anything else about his plans—where he intends to live or how he plans to manage financially?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Celine squeezed her leg. “Try not to worry any more than you have to right now. There is still a lot to be worked out before any of this happens.”

  “I know.”

  Syd put Henry’s shoe back down and picked up her cell phone. She turned it over and over between her hands. She gave a bitter-sounding laugh. “And as if things weren’t bad enough, I get a text message from Jeff’s mother telling me that she’s coming through town tomorrow.”

  Celine was surprised. “Dorrie is coming here?”

  “Not here as in here, but here as in Jericho. She wants to meet me for lunch.”

  “That’s . . . interesting.”

  “Isn’t it? I can only guess what she wants to talk about.”

  “Is she coming by herself?”

  Syd shrugged. “I honestly have no idea.”

  “Are you going to meet her?” Celine’s tone sounded neutral.

  “I suppose so.” Syd slouched into the sofa cushions. “Who was that ancient king who took all the small doses of poison to build up an immunity?”

  Celine smiled at her. “Mithridates?”

  “That’s the one.” Syd closed her eyes. “He was my role model when I was married to Jeff.”

  “Was it really that bad?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “So, as your new mother-in-law, I shouldn’t be concerned until I see you sneaking small shots of theriac?”

  Syd opened one eye and looked at her. “I don’t think you need to worry.”

  “Where do you intend to meet her for lunch?”

  “I don’t know . . . probably the café.”

  “Will Maddie go with you?”

  Syd shook her head. “I doubt it. She works in Wytheville tomorrow. I wouldn’t ask her to, in any case.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is my mess, and I want to be the one to clean it up.”

  Celine was silent.

  “Do you disagree?”

  Celine shook her head. “It’s not my place either to agree or disagree. Besides . . . knowing Dorrie, I think you’d be better served by taking along a two-by-four instead of a bodyguard.”

  Syd laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Maddie stood in the doorway. She glanced from the two of them to the TV screen. “It looks like the Yankees lost.”

  “They did?” Syd looked at the television, where talking heads were recapping the game. “At least something went right this evening.”

  Maddie looked confused.

  “Don’t worry.” Syd sat up and patted the sofa cushion to indicate that Maddie should come and join them.

  Maddie obeyed and sat down to watch the replays. “How did you two miss the end of the game? A ninth inning grand slam is a pretty dramatic finish.”

  “From your mouth to god’s ear,” Syd said.

  Maddie glanced at her. “Did I miss something else?”

  “No, honey.” Syd leaned her head against Maddie’s shoulder. “I’m just thinking about other kinds of end games.”

  UPSTAIRS IN THEIR room, David was busy doing something on his laptop.

  Michael had already finished in the bathroom and was turning back the bed. “Are you about ready to turn in? I’m beat.”

  David didn’t look up from the screen. “Just another minute—I’ll be right there.”

  “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “Nope.”

  “What are you doing, anyway?”

  “You might say that I’m managing our investments.”

  Michael sighed. “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  David waved a hand. “Time waits for no man.” He chuckled. “Or woman.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Now there’s a piece of late-breaking news.”

  David hit the return key with a flourish. “Done.”

  Michael climbed beneath the covers. “Great. Now can we go to bed?”

  David snapped his laptop closed and stood up. “Yes my furry prince, everything is in hand.” He looked at Michael and twirled an imaginary moustache. “Or will be shortly, if you remembered to floss . . .”

  Michael just sighed and turned off the bedside light.

  Outside their window, the full moon continued along its slow, but determined path across the night sky.

  Chapter 18

  “YOU DON’T SEE a ducktail spoiler like that every day.”

  David was startled by the comment coming from just behind his right shoulder. He fought an impulse to check his hair before he turned around.

  It was Jocelyn Painter.

  “Now that there’s a beaut,” she said. “A ’68, isn’t it?”

  David nodded. They both were looking at Gladys’s sporty street rod. Junior had it up on a lift in his center garage bay, but it was still pretty hard to miss.

  “I swanny. Those factory inserts on that stock hood look ten times better than any of those repro cowl induction vents most people think they have to have on these muscle cars.”

  David had no idea what she was talking about. “Yeah. That’s just what I was thinking.”

  He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. He’d been trying to quit, during the time they’d been living with Maddie and Syd, but sometimes the urge for a smoke was overwhelming. Like right now. It was hard to be around all this gritty, manly stuff and not want to fire one up.

  Jocelyn was outside having a cigarette, too. They stood together on the small, marked-off section of concrete that was designated as safe for smokers.

  “It’s good to see you, Jocelyn. What brings you out here so early on a Monday morning?”

  It was barely nine o’clock.

  She turned around and gestured at her ancient Chevy. It was parked out front next to a sagging phone booth that was nearly as old as the car. “Damn Biscayne blew a bulb in the right tail light, and Junior’s is the only place I can get ’em in a hurry.”

  David nodded. “How are things going? I saw that Fleetwood Homes was advertising free delivery right now.”

  She took a long drag off her cigarette. “I wish I could say that things were going good. I rode shotgun on the sale of six Coronado Ultras just this month alone, and could’ve done twice as many if only Deb had been able to work.”

  “Deb still in mourning, then?” David asked. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Jocelyn slowly swung her head back and forth. “Every time I think she’s about ready to turn a corner, another damn piece of that car turns up someplace. Then she sinks right back down into a pit of despair. I swear . . . that damn thing has more lives than a busload of alley cats.”

  David patted her on the shoulder. “Keep the faith, Jocelyn. Sometimes things have a way of working out.”

  She took a final drag on her cigarette and dropped it so she could pulverize it with the toe of her boot.

  “I hope you’re right. Oops . . . there�
��s Junior with my bulb. I gotta scoot—the new Cabela’s catalogs are out today, and I’m gonna have to make half a dozen trips back into town just to haul ’em all.”

  David waved goodbye as she hurried toward her car, and reminded her to be sure and bring Deb to the open house next week.

  Junior was already kneeling at the back of the Biscayne, removing the red glass cover from her taillight. He held up his hand to let David know he’d just be another five minutes.

  David decided that was long enough to enjoy another smoke.

  He stood there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmer temperature. He didn’t even need a jacket this morning. It was clear that it was going to be an early summer. The wild Shasta bushes that lined the fence across the road from Junior’s were already loaded with constellations of fluffy, white flowers.

  He thought he saw Cletus Freemantle drive by in his old blue, Chevy pickup. There was somebody slumped down in the passenger seat, but David couldn’t make out who it was. Maybe Azalea? Junior said that Cletus was off today because he had to take his mother into Wytheville for something.

  David snorted. Probably to Walmart for more ammo.

  Another car roared in and rolled to a stop.

  Great.

  At the rate this was going, he’d be better off just to leave the damn check under that dust-covered pyramid of empty oilcans in Junior’s “office.”

  He watched a late-model silver Mercedes back into a parking space out front. Then he got a good look at who was driving it.

  He smiled and ground out his cigarette.

  Oh, yeah. This can totally work.

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and spooled up his photo album. Then he headed toward the somewhat portly woman who had just climbed out of the big sedan.

  She looked a lot less formidable without the chains and leather vest.

  “Hi there, Muriel,” he called out. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  LIZZY HUNG UP the phone and turned around to face Maddie. “Well, that has to be about the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Maddie was restocking the supply cabinet in the hallway that led to the clinic’s examination rooms.

  “It was Tom Greene.” Lizzy sat down on a nearby stool. “Just when I think I know what to expect from that man, he shifts gears and comes at me from some entirely new direction.”

  “What’s his angle this time?” Maddie asked. “He want you to rent a naughty nurse costume and serve drinks at the Masonic Lodge?”

  Lizzy blinked. “No, but I have to say that’s about the most appalling idea I’ve ever heard.”

  Maddie shrugged. “I’ve known Tom a long time.”

  “Well, I think this one will surprise even you.”

  Maddie closed the cabinet door and crossed her arms. “What did he want?”

  Lizzy raised her brown eyes to Maddie’s. “He was calling to say that he’d had a change of heart, and he’s decided to extend the funding for my position for another two years.”

  “What?” Maddie dropped her arms. “That’s incredible.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Maddie shook her head. “I’m nearly speechless. What do you think happened to change his mind?”

  “I have no earthly idea.”

  Maddie thought about it. There was no way this was because of them—unless Tom was just running scared after their encounter in Charlotte.

  No. That wouldn’t be enough to scare him . . . straight—unless he knew about the photographs, of course. But that couldn’t be it. Syd wasn’t the one who took them. Besides, she had deleted all those images last night after David found them.

  Unless . . .

  She was starting to get a sick feeling.

  Lizzy was looking at her strangely. “Are you okay? I thought you’d be happy about this?”

  “Oh, god, no. I am happy about this. Ecstatic, in fact.” She smiled at Lizzy. “Are you going to get this in writing?”

  Lizzy looked at her with disbelief. “Of course I am. I don’t trust that man as far as I could throw him. I’m going by the hospital after work to pick up the contract.”

  “Wise woman.”

  Peggy Hawkes stuck her head around the corner. “Doc Stevenson? Your eleven-thirty just canceled.”

  Maddie glanced at her watch. “Wasn’t that our last appointment this morning?”

  Peggy nodded. “But Roma Jean Freemantle is here, and she’s complaining about her elbow.”

  “Her elbow?”

  Peggy rolled her eyes.

  Maddie looked at Lizzy. “Why don’t you go ahead and take an early lunch? You can get a jump start on getting that contract signed.”

  “Contract?” Peggy asked.

  Lizzy smiled at her. “Tom Greene just renewed my funding for two more years.”

  Peggy clapped her hands together in excitement. “Maybe we’ll get that wedding after all.”

  Lizzy stared at her with an open mouth. “Wedding?”

  Peggy nodded with excitement.

  Maddie cleared her throat.

  “I’m glad you’re happy about this, Peggy,” Lizzy said. “But there is no wedding on my immediate horizon.”

  “Oh, you girls always say that. And as soon as those young men pop that question, you’re all doe-eyed and dreaming.”

  “Not all of us,” Maddie quipped.

  “You don’t count.” Peggy corrected her. “But I think I’ll have to do something nice for Tom and Muriel.”

  “I think that’s a fine idea, Peggy,” Maddie agreed. She smiled sweetly at her nurse and decided to indulge an evil impulse. “Why don’t you bake them a lemon chess pie?”

  Peggy’s bobbed her head like the plastic poodle that was a fixture in the back window of her Buick.

  “That’s just what I was thinking.”

  “Kismet,” Maddie muttered. Peggy’s pies were legendary in the county—as things to avoid like the plague. She couldn’t think of a nicer way to repay Tom Greene for being such an iconic asshole.

  “On that . . . happy . . . note,” Lizzy said. “I think I’ll go sign the contract while there’s still time.”

  “You do that,” Maddie said. “Peggy, please bring Roma Jean back, and tell her I’ll be right with her.”

  Peggy nodded and headed back to the waiting room.

  “Elbow?” Lizzy asked.

  Maddie shrugged.

  “Uh huh.” Lizzy grabbed her bag out of a locker and walked toward the back door of the clinic. “Good luck, Dr. Phil.”

  Maddie watched her leave—half hoping she wasn’t right.

  SYD DUCKED INTO Freemantle’s market on her way to meet Doris at the Midway Café.

  Henry needed a new battery for his PlayStation controller, which actually meant that David needed a new battery for Henry’s PlayStation controller. Normally, this was something they’d have to pick up at Walmart, but Edna told Syd in church on Sunday that she had to keep them in stock for Azalea, who was addicted to Grand Theft Auto.

  Edna explained that Evelyn actually bought the unit so she could play her Just Dance 3 exercise game—but Cletus quickly co-opted the thing and added a slew of the more questionable titles. He pointed out that nobody was better at capping hookers than Azalea.

  “It’s like she’s on some kind of religious crusade,” he told Edna.

  Edna was unimpressed and even less surprised, but she ordered the batteries just the same.

  “That’ll be six twenty-three.” Edna slid the plastic package across the counter. “Do you want a bag?”

  Syd shook her head. “No, thanks, Edna. I’ll take it just like this.” She gave Edna a ten-dollar bill.

  “Are you in a hurry to get someplace?” Edna opened the cash drawer and withdrew Syd’s change.

  “I’m meeting someone for lunch at the Café,” Syd explained. “But I’ve got a few minutes.”

  Edna closed the cash drawer and took a quick look around the interior of the small mar
ket.