Deadly Diet

by Kodi Heart

  “Okay, let’s get the meeting started.” Grandma turned to Tanya with a sickly-sweet smile. “You were saying, Tanya?”

  Tanya stood, towering over Grandma and yet slightly diminutive after the fight. “I think we should do what you suggested. Go ahead, Mary.”

  At least the fighting had been averted. I sighed. Nikki might be mad at me, but at least I had the group working together again. That was the most important thing.

  And maybe, just maybe, Mom and I could get some cooperation from someone who might know something. At that point, I’d take all the help I could get.

  15

  My phone rang while I walked back and forth between the three groups my kids had paired off into. The older three had partnered with the younger three and were each circled around a bowl of flour water and a balloon. Piles of newspaper strips darkened the porch planks around them.

  Our deck was made of composite material and it had roughed up in patches over the years. But without it being actual wood, I didn’t have to worry about the kids getting slivers in their legs or hands. When Grandma’s place had had wooden decking, us kids had always had slivers. She’d switched to composite a while back, too, and it was vastly preferable for bare feet to run on.

  Sunlight warmed us on the beautiful spring day. If it hadn’t been for the damp grass and still-melting snow mounds, we would have been on the lawn, making a mess there. As long as I rinsed the flour paste from the deck, Aaron wouldn’t mind where we did it.

  Pulling the phone from my pocket, I swiped the screen and answered Mom’s call. “Hola, Momsy. How’s it goin’?” Bending down, I nudged Matthew’s shoulder and mouthed “Use more paste.” He smiled at me while nodding, clumping more of the goopy mess onto the paper strip he was using.

  “I’m sitting here getting ready to take a nap. What are you guys doing?” Mom worked as a radiologic technologist part time. On the days she worked, she was tired. It was a hard job.

  “Making pinatas. I forgot it was a timely process. Cinco de mayo needs to back off. I’m not sure these will be dry by then.” I laughed, watching a clump of gooey paste drip down the side of the balloon in Sydney’s hands. My daughter laughed as Ryder poked at it.

  “Oh, those are rough.” Mom laughed, too. “Thanks for making them. Miguel wants it more authentic this year.”

  Every year we made pinatas for Cinco de mayo. No idea why we celebrated the holiday other than it was a reason to eat Mexican. I could find reasons to eat in a dark cave, so I wasn’t against anything being fun.

  Sidney tapped on my shoulder. “Mom, who’s Aunt Kiki?” She held out the postcard I’d received from my aunt.

  My eyes grew wide and I held up my finger to my lips in the universal quiet sign.

  Too late, though. My mom’s end of the line fell silent. After a moment, Mom asked, “What? Why’d she ask about Kiki?” The question was valid. Why would I be talking about my aunt? It was obvious, I hadn’t been or Sydney would know who she was.

  What did I do? I was already going to be in trouble for not saying anything before then. I was supposed to tell my mom everything, barring private marriage things.

  I hadn’t though. My guilt had been bugging me and I couldn’t help gulping. “I… well, I just. Nothing, I mean, I got a card from Aunt Kiki.” I cleared my throat and turned away from the kids immersed in their art project.

  Staring unseeingly at the landscape, I breathed deeply. My stomach clenched. Would she be mad at me? I held the card in my hands, somehow, I’d taken it back from Sydney. Why didn’t I remember that?

  “You didn’t tell me?” Her feelings were hurt and she sounded betrayed.

  “Mom, I wasn’t sure how to. It’s not like you’re searching for a connection with your long-lost sister.” But I was. I constantly looked for my aunt in the crowds at the stores and in the parking lots of the art stores. I could feel the hole in the family and in Nikki’s life as her mom stayed away from her home ground. I believed in the value and importance of family and I wanted Kiki back. I saw so many in the family who needed her back.

  I didn’t like broken things. I was a fixer by nature and I wanted the family fixed.

  Mom didn’t speak.

  Well, I’d have to get her talking. “Who do you think I should tell?” If I included her in the decision part of the information, maybe she wouldn’t be so mad at me. I was a people pleaser and I hated that part of me, but it had to be appeased.

  Before I could rethink asking my question, Mom blurted out, “No. Don’t… I wouldn’t tell anyone just yet. Especially not Nikki or Grandma. I need time to think about this.” She sounded thoughtful and far off. She was definitely still mad, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  I turned, ready to pace, then froze in horror. “I need to go. Matthey and Andrew are paper-macheting David to a football.” We hung up and I took my fifth child inside for a good cleaning. “The rest of you get this cleaned up.” Shaking my head, I wondered whose children they really were. Probably Aaron’s in those moments. I mean, who would think to stick their brother to a ball? Aaron had most likely done that with all of his siblings.

  Aaron came from a big family. I’d been so excited to marry into it until I realized I wasn’t welcome. That had been a blow. I wasn’t welcome in his family, so I focused more on my side of the family. I needed to fix it and I wasn’t sure how.

  How was I supposed to keep something like the card from Nikki for so long? I didn’t want to keep it a secret, but at the same time, I had no idea how I would tell her.

  She’d be even more betrayed than Mom was. My stomach ached at the thought.

  Why didn’t I just text everyone in the family when I’d gotten the card? No. That would have opened a bigger can of worms than keeping it a secret. I should have told Grandma and let her deal with the fallout. That would have been easiest.

  Too late for that as well. I should have told Mom about Don’s hotel receipt from the same spot as Kiki’s postcard. She was mad, though. I needed to give her some time to cool off.

  David wrinkled his nose at me. “Were Andrew and Matthew going to stuff me full of candy? They said they were going to beat the stuffing out of me.” He looked down at the bottom of the bathtub, his eyes sad.

  I couldn’t help laughing as I rubbed shampoo into his hair. “Honey, if anyone is getting the stuffing beat out of them, it’s those two.” I smiled when he raised his hopeful eyes. Squeezing his shoulders, I dumped water on the back of his thick blond hair. “No one is getting beat, silly. I’ll talk to them about that. It wasn’t nice of them to treat you that way.”

  What would make Kiki leave like she had? I needed to know. I wanted to make sure I didn’t make the same mistake when my children were bigger. I didn’t want to see my family fractured like the Flemings.

  I don’t think my heart could handle it.

  16

  I couldn’t stop worrying about what Mom thought about the card. Of course, she felt betrayed I hadn’t told her, but she hadn’t said anything about the card itself. She’d asked me to text her pictures of it – front and back – but that was the last I heard about it.

  There was too much information surrounding Debra’s death that could have to do with Kiki’s disappearance. I wasn’t sure how the two cases were related but it made it even harder to separate the clues out.

  I still wasn’t sure what to think about Debra’s death. I couldn’t pinpoint who exactly would have a reason to kill her. She wasn’t annoying, or bullying, or anything that would be expected in someone people killed. Her past with Don suggested she might have had some kind of a drug involvement, but what kind? I wasn’t really interested in Norris’s political aspirations but if they were real, then wouldn’t Debra have been like a trophy wife or something? She was beautiful and polite. What more did he want?

  The arsenic meant it was more of a personal thing. The Crank Brothers, the coffee place, couldn’t have anything to do with it. Arsenic wasn’t something you could generally hide. If
they were poisoning one, they’d be poisoning more. There hadn’t been any reported incidents of poisoning, unless of course, they were covering things up. But could the possibly huge number of poisonings be covered up? I wasn’t sure.

  I wasn’t even sure who they was.

  I still wasn’t sure how anyone or why anyone would cover up murder. I mean, would you want a killer in office? Probably not. When things came down to politics, I didn’t try to pretend to understand anything. That entire situation convoluted things more.

  The next Foodie Fools meeting came and I still didn’t have anything to report to Nikki. Her increasing texts were becoming more harried and I wasn’t sure what to say. I stopped replying by Friday night. Guilt curdled in my stomach with each passing out and nausea played a huge role in my sleepless night.

  Saturday dawned bright and I made my way to the meeting with an impending gloom around me. I didn’t even eat breakfast and the family was eating Aaron’s magic pancakes – magic because you forgot how many you were eating. Something was wrong with me, if I didn’t want to eat.

  I stood in line and weighed, ignoring Penny and Jessie’s jagged comments at my weight increase. Yeah, so what? I was an emotional eater and I was stressed. That was the perfect combination for me to bake twelve crème Brule and eat them all.

  In one night.

  I’m sure there were more calories in that one sitting than I was allotted all month. I glared at Penny and almost told her to ask me if I care? But I bit my tongue. I didn’t need to start a fight with Penny. I was trained in boxing and she was bigger than me. I would also get in trouble by Aunt Holly. Maybe. Her AM flask had been out since I’d arrived and I had a feeling she’d be three-sheets to the wind before the break was announced.

  Something nagged me about Debra’s death, too, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Whatever it was, bothered me so much, I couldn’t sleep well, which, of course, Mom had already pointed out contributed to weight gain. That wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t sleeping, but it certainly aided in my tossing and turning.

  No matter what I did, I was doomed to fail the weigh-in.

  Jessie’s snide comments didn’t help anything either. Maybe I should ditch out of the meeting and go for ice cream like Don did. Maybe I could ask him more questions about where he’d been and find out if he knew my aunt somehow. Would it really be that far-fetched? Debra had been close to Mom’s age and Mom was only two years younger than Kiki.

  I took a seat and looked around for my mom, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I couldn’t escape the sensation she might still be mad at me. That was something I was never for sure of either. The people-pleaser in me always doubted that people were happy with me. I’d lied about the card. How long would residual anger exist for Mom?

  Think of the devil, a moment later Mom rushed through the door, nodding at me as she hopped in line, gripping her purse and the journal. She finished weighing and claimed the chair beside me. Leaning over, she huffed, “I was up. Again. Ugh. Miguel made omelets with waffles. There’s no backing out of that.” She held her bag on her lap and glanced at the door, stiffening and her facial expression going tight.

  I followed her gaze and found Nikki ducking through the door. Her long blonde hair was twisted into a braid, hanging down her back. Her makeup was subtle in grays and blacks. With her blue-gray eyes, the effect was mesmerizing. For some reason, I idolized Nikki. She was only a few months older than me, but she’d always seemed worldlier and more experienced.

  She moved to stand at the back of the room, searching for someone.

  I could tell I was who she looked for when her gaze fell on me and her searching stopped. She strode my way. Before I could stop her or put something in the chair to my left, Nikki sat down in it and whispered loudly, “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No. Who would I tell?” That was a lie. I’d just told the group last week, but to be fair, I hadn’t said who had told me. I couldn’t keep all the secrets straight. Also, I’d only mentioned the arsenic possibility, not that Nikki could lose her job. I hadn’t told anyone else about Nikki’s job problems, nor had I told anyone else but Mom about the card. All of the secrets compiled inside me hurt my head. “Plus, who did you tell? I mean, I’m not the only one. So maybe one of them told others.” The mix put me on the defensive and that just irritated me more.

  Maybe I should have forced myself to eat a pancake or five that morning.

  Nikki’s gaze darted around the room and she bit her lip. “Okay, I’m just… Sorry, I have a lot on my mind.” She smiled tightly at Angie and Penny and wiggled her fingers hello.

  I knew she did and I was about to make things worse and I was going to upset my mom. I glanced over my shoulder at Mom. She shook her head wildly at me, her eyes wide. I turned back to Nikki, ignoring my mom’s silent admonition. “I have to tell you… I got a postcard from your mom.” I kept it in a near-whisper. The normal chatter around the room covered up my confession. Maybe Nikki wouldn’t hear me and think I said something else.

  Nikki heard loud and clear, though. She jerked back like I’d struck her. She stared at me, her emotions playing across her features like a torturous game of improv. Suddenly, there was no more whispering. “What?! Why? Why you?” Her screech split the comfortable conversations around the room in two.

  I glanced around at the collective silence that fell upon the room like a blanket. All eyes were on us and I furrowed my brow. I swallowed, looking back at my closest friend. “I’m sorry. I… I thought you should know.” Could I regret my decisions any more than I did right then? Probably. I wasn’t sure. I should have listened to my mom. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  Better yet, I should have stayed in bed that morning.

  Tears rolled down Nikki’s cheeks. “Why didn’t she mail me or tell me or… Why not me?” Pain twisted sharp in my gut at the obvious nature of what Kiki had done. The card might not have had a nice message in it for me, but it had been a message. She could have easily sent it to Nikki and let her daughter and grandchildren know that she was okay. Or her husband.

  Why me? I hadn’t considered just how significant that question would be.

  Holly leaned forward, rubbing Nikki’s back and shaking her head. “Honey, moms do what it takes to protect their children. She probably thought she was saving you some kind of pain. That’s the only reason that makes any sense. Women… we’re weird and we do things oftentimes without thinking them through completely.”

  Nikki sniffed and stood. She avoided looking at me and that hurt more than anything. She walked out without another word. I glanced around with little eye flicks here and there, unwilling or unable to make eye contact with anyone for very long.

  Grandma stood, shooting me a questioning demand with her eyes for answers.

  I had a lot to answer for. Was Grandma going to make me answer the questions right then? I hadn’t told anyone that Kiki had sent me evidence that she was still alive. How long had Grandma been worried about her daughter? What about Grandpa as he was the worrier of the family? What harm had I done by hiding the card’s presence?

  My breathing hitched and I leaned toward Mom. “I should have told everyone when I got it.” I regretted my actions to not say anything. Secrets were against everything inside me and I was reaping the repercussions of what happened when I didn’t stick to my resolve.

  The next time someone asked me to keep secrets, I was going to laugh in their face. Secrets were not the way to go. Things needed to be dealt with out in the open and I had a feeling Debra’s death would have been easier to figure out, if there weren’t so many secrets.

  I needed to adopt an attitude of bluntness and boldness. That would be the only way to beat the need for secrets.

  How else would I get anything out of anyone?

  17

  Holly made a good point, though. People did the craziest things to protect the ones they loved.

  I would have to apologize, not only to Grandma for the secrets, but to everyone else
as well. Everyone in there had lost someone important to them when Kiki had disappeared – a sister, an aunt, a daughter, a mother, a mother-in-law, and a friend. Everyone in there would have liked to have heard that she sent a card – that she wasn’t dead.

  The soft pat-pat of Jill’s shoes hitting the linoleum as she tried to increase her steps for the day called softly through the silence as Grandma turned the time over to Tanya. Grandma avoided my gaze as she sat, staring at the floor. She wasn’t happy. Which meant something bugged her more than hearing about the card. Maybe she was glad Kiki was still alive, but sad that her daughter continued to stay away.

  Selfishness had kept my mouth shut. Well, not anymore. I’d promised Nikki I would figure out what had happened to Debra and I wasn’t going to let her down. Maybe, if I could tell her good news about Debra’s death, then maybe she’d have a reason to let me off the hook and forgive me.

  I pulled out my cell and messaged Mom.

  Do you think Norris could have poisoned himself to keep the suspicion off himself?

  Her reply came after she had to share with the group. Grandma and that dang mason jar of names.

  I was thinking the same thing.

  Raising my hand, I waited for Tanya to call on me. She did so reluctantly but with her eyebrows raised. I spoke loud and clear. “Does anyone know if Debra’s husband is still sick in the hospital?” I didn’t like everyone looking at me after Nikki’s blowup, but I ignored the heat in my cheeks as they slowly looked away. I mean, they all knew what I’d done. I’d hurt them all. I had to prove I wasn’t out to hurt anyone.

  “I believe he’s still in there. They found trace amounts of arsenic in his system and he’s been in all week because of complications.” Jessie spoke up, earning a glare from Tanya for not raising her hand. Jessie didn’t seem to care. She offered me a sympathetic smile. Maybe I’d been too hard on Jessie in the past. If she could be nice to me when everyone else was glaring, I could probably give her a break.