Or was it enough to love her, to want the best for her, and still take care of my own needs? Was it honoring her when I told a little white lie rather than hurt her feelings or get crossways with her? Was it honor that caused me to try to win her favor? That forced me to keep in contact with her even when she hurt my feelings?
I tried to treat my mother with respect. But did I give her “great respect and admiration” as the dictionary defined the word “honor”? I admired her for her achievements. She pursued a career back when most women were content to marry and live through their children. She raised my sisters and me almost single-handedly. But I didn’t admire her self-centeredness, her insatiable desire to hog the limelight, her unbridled need to take credit for every accomplishment that Catherine, Amanda, and I eeked out of life. Nor did I admire the way she demanded that her needs trump all of ours.
I hated the way she had allowed our father to abuse us. When I thought back to the circumstances leading to Catherine’s departure …
I couldn’t go there.
Fifty-two
As if summoned by my musings, my phone rang and I recognized the number. “Mom?”
“I want to go shopping.”
I couldn’t take her. Neither could Sheila. I knew my mother-in-law was spending the entire day working with her caterer, Leon Coleman, a person clearly destined for sainthood, if his African Methodist Episcopalian Church approved the promotion. So far, Sheila had changed her entire menu three times. She demanded to see Leon’s recipes and handed him her own “improved” versions. When she tried to cut back the number of items being served, his fingers pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his broad nose. Looking suspiciously like Morgan Freeman, he said, “Jews don’t set no skimpy tables.”
Sheila capitulated. It might not have been the scolding. It might have been because Leon Coleman was Linnea’s second cousin. We all wanted her back. Soon. As in yesterday.
“Mom, I can’t take you to the mall. Not this afternoon.”
She whined like a toddler who’d tossed all his toys out of his playpen. “I’m bored. You can’t expect me to sit around all day with nothing to do.”
“Why don’t you watch TV?”
“I have. I’ve been watching the shopping channel. I saw a chest of drawers that I like. And two dresses. But they say there’s a problem with my credit card.”
Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.
She prattled on. “Claudia called. She misses me. She wants to see me. I want to see Claudia. When can I go home?”
Again with the Claudia stuff. I had no idea who Claudia was, but I understood having a problem with her credit card and that was definitely not good.
“Hang on. I’ll come pick you up.”
“Hurry,” she moaned. “I’m not sure how long I can last.”
Fifty-three
On my way to Sheila’s I dialed Amanda. When she answered on the first ring, I was so shocked I couldn’t manage a proper greeting. Instead, I sat too long at a green light only to be honked at by the car behind me and its driver who glared at me as he zoomed past.
“Hello?” my sister repeated.
The words came out in a rush. “Don’t hang up. It’s about Mom. Is she sick? I mean, she keeps having to use the restroom. What’s up with her credit cards? Why does she keep asking for Claudia. Who’s Claudia?”
Amanda sighed. “Hello to you, too. I don’t have much time to talk. I’m getting my nails done.”
Wow, I thought, that sounds like pure heaven to me!
“Look,” Amanda continued, “I honestly don’t know if Mom is sick or not. She’s always been a frequent pee-er. That’s not unusual for a woman her age.”
“Okay,” I took that onboard. “But what’s the story with her credit card? Who’s Claudia? Mom demands to see her.”
“That’s a long story.”
I pulled off to one side. I knew Dodie needed her lunch. I knew Mom was waiting impatiently for me. I also knew my sister. Amanda could be the slowest talker in the world when she chose to be. Hurrying her along would not help. I needed to hang in there and let her tell the story at her own pace.
She didn’t say anything.
“Amanda? Amanda, are you there? Look, you don’t have to handle all this alone. You get mad at me because I don’t help. Give me a chance. Talk to me. What’s up?”
In a halting voice, she said, “Do you remember Mrs. McMurray? The red-haired lady two houses over? I think her first name is Rena. Her daughter hired a helper by the name of Claudia Turrow. A couple of times, Claudia brought Mom books that Mrs. McMurray had finished reading and wanted to share. She also invited Mom over to visit Mrs. McMurray. Once or twice she even took both the women out for lunch.”
That didn’t sound like a problem. In fact, it sounded rather nice. I wondered why Amanda sounded upset. I kept quiet.
“Last month Mrs. McMurray started having serious health problems. She went to her doctor. Her cancer has come back, and the treatments aren’t working. They’ve called in hospice. Claudia’s last day is next Friday, a week from tomorrow.”
“So this Claudia person is nice to Mom? That’s a good thing, right?”
“It would be. But I don’t trust her. Kiki, there’s something weird about her. Makes my skin crawl to be around her.”
Fifty-four
I sat there for a minute and watched cars go by. “What do you think is going on?”
“Claudia is looking for her next job. She’s been telling Mom how much she admires her. Mom’s been saying weird stuff like, ‘Claudia loves me. She’s says I’m the mother she never had.’”
Either Claudia had been orphaned at an early age or she’d been raised by a pack of feral wolves.
Amanda continued, “I want to talk to Mrs. McMurray’s daughter and get the straight scoop, but as you can guess, the timing isn’t right. Poor old Mrs. McMurray is on death’s doorstep.”
“There’s more to this, isn’t there?” I could feel it.
“Last time I visited, I noticed that a few of Mrs. McMurray’s possessions were missing. An ivory mirror and brush. A signed lithograph by Erté. A small bronze statue that I think was a Remington.”
“Mom doesn’t have much to lose.”
“No, but what she does have should stay in the family. Even if Mrs. McMurray gave those objects to Claudia, the woman had no business accepting them. Not when Mrs. McMurray wasn’t thinking clearly.” Amanda huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf in the fairy tale. “I suspect that Claudia is latching onto Mom because she’s looking for a full-time job as a caregiver.”
“But Mom doesn’t need full-time care. She lives with you.”
“Not exactly. Mom has her own part of the house, her own apartment. I work all day. I have my own life. So, yes, we share the same address, but I’m not around 24/7 to babysit our mother.” Amanda sounded snippy, but I decided not to take offense.
I’d never seen the house in Arizona, never been invited there. I guess she’d made assumptions about my life and I’d made assumptions about hers, in that ignorantly judgmental way that people do. So we’d nurtured our hurts and thought the worst of each other. Sibling rivalry doesn’t end at childhood. Instead, it smolders and flares up like a brush fire throughout your life.
“I’m sorry if I sounded offensive,” I said sincerely. “Mom’s lucky to have you so close by.”
“Yeah? That’s not what Claudia has convinced her. Claudia has told Mom I ignore her. She’s convinced Mom that she deserves better, that I’m a negligent, thankless child. I found a note she sent Mom suggesting that my ingratitude was sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”
Nothing like using the Bible to divide and conquer, to sow animosity and pain. I could only imagine all the angels wincing. How did God put up with us? What a miserable lot we were.
Amanda sighed, “Mom’s convinced she can’t live without Claudia. Wait till you hear what that woman charges for her caregiver services.” My sister named a figure easily three tim
es my current wages.
“And she’s not even a nurse?”
“Nope. She’s a companion. That’s it, that’s all.”
“That’s why you sent Mom to me?”
“It’s one reason. Another is that I just had a physical and my blood pressure is off the charts. The doctor suggested I take a break. And yeah, I figured if Mom disappeared, she couldn’t hire Claudia. If she couldn’t hire Claudia, Claudia would move on. Problem solved.”
Simple and elegant. I had to admire Amanda. She’d thought this through.
“Good work, Amanda.”
“Not so fast. We aren’t out of the woods yet. Claudia has a contract until the end of the next week, and she’s very, very sneaky. One of Mom’s friends called me to say that Claudia was pressuring her for your phone number. I’ve already made Mom’s cell phone disappear. I don’t know if you can live without yours, but you might want to be careful about answering calls from strange numbers.”
I thought about that. I remembered the name on my cell … Beverly Somebody. Could that have been Claudia? Or a wrong number?
I put on my blinker, checked for oncoming traffic, and pulled back onto the street. “You were always a lot sneakier than I was. I admire that about you, leetle seester.” It was my pet name for her.
“Thank you, big seester.”
I grinned for the first time in several days. Despite all the stuff going wrong in my life, I felt great. I had my sister back!
Fifty-five
Mom stood on the curb outside Sheila’s house, chomping on the proverbial bit and raring to go. She danced around like a horse headed back to the barn.
“I want to go to that mall. The one with the fancy stores and the piano in the center court.”
“We’re heading somewhere much more special.” I backed out of the driveway carefully. “Put your seat belt on.”
She needed help with that. My mom, a woman known for her physical flexibility, couldn’t twist far enough to capture the end with the buckle.
Who is this woman? She’s not the mother I grew up with. She’s not limber, or mentally sharp. She’s more like a child than a woman in her mid-seventies.
“This is a special event. I know how much you like history. We’re visiting a historic landmark, and there’s a butterfly house on the grounds.”
She squinched up her mouth, pinching it tighter than a miser’s purse. “But I wanted to get a new pair of shoes. You ruined mine. You owe me a pair.”
“Yes, but we can go to the mall tomorrow or the next day. I’m taking you to a special event that only occurs once a year and it’s this weekend.” I hesitated. Should I go over the top? I sneaked a quick glance at Mom and saw the mulish set of her face. So I added, “I’ve been bragging about you to the other vendors. They are all dying to meet you. Besides, I thought we could grab lunch.”
She sat in the car while I grabbed my wallet and got our food. When I came back, my cell phone was sitting on the console. I didn’t recall leaving it there, but I was too hungry to worry over it and Mom began to attack her food as if she were a starving animal. This was wholly at odds with the woman who had raised me. That parent had insisted on impeccable manners.
At Faust Park, Dodie greeted Mom warmly, took her salad gratefully, and told me about what she’d sold. When Mom toddled off to look over our neighbor’s booth, Dodie gave me a broad grin. “After I finish eating, I’ll take her for a stroll and show her the 1920 carousel.”
“Carousel?” Mom’s ears perked up and she came back over to us. I bought her a bag of kettle corn and all of us munched happily on the sweet snack.
“The carousel is inside that special building. It has sixty hand-carved animals. They’re absolutely beautiful,” said Dodie. My boss turned her attention toward me. “Kiki, do you know if Clancy showed up to relieve Margit? I don’t think she’s comfortable with the cash register yet.”
“I gave Margit a quick tutorial. I told her to call me if she had any problems.”
“I appreciate that, Sunshine. Really I do.” Dodie’s eyes lit up with the sort of spark I hadn’t seen in awhile, at least not since she’d been taking chemo and radiation therapy for cancer of the larynx. “It’s good to hear you two are getting off on the right foot.”
Suddenly, our booth began to sway and tremble. The back wall buckled outwards. This wouldn’t be St. Louis’s first earthquake, or it’s last … but then I realized that the tremor was only affecting our little domicile.
“What on earth?” I leapt to my feet and grabbed at the back wall, but my fingers missed their grip. All three of us watched in horror as it crashed down, taking hundreds of dollars of merchandise along.
Standing to one side of the mess was a laughing Brenda Detweiler. “How do you like that? Homewrecker!”
But I didn’t have time to react to her, because I was busy trying to steady the left and right walls. Without the back side bracing them, they listed dangerously toward the center. I raced to the left, and Dodie stood up and steadied the right. Brenda ran to Dodie’s side and pushed against the wobbling structure.
“Stop it! Get away!” Dodie swatted at her. “Somebody help! Help!”
“Mom, run!” I held up my side of the structure with one arm as I frantically gestured to my mother to clear out. But she stood there in the center, mesmerized by the activity around her.
“Mom, please move. I’m begging you. This could fall. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Stop it, Brenda! Quit it!” Dodie’s raspy voice soared over creaks and moans of the rocking structure. Shrink-wrapped packages fell to the dirt as Brenda’s rhythmic shoving motion loosened the hooks holding them.
“Brenda?” I straddled the left wall to brace it. “Knock it off. Let’s talk, okay? Just you and me? No need to involve Dodie or my mother.”
“Done talking,” she said followed by a mighty “ooph.”
With my free hand I reached into my pocket and hit the speed dial for Detweiler.
But Brenda moved faster than I did. She slapped my phone out of my hand. “I told you to stay away from my husband! You slut! I told you you’d be sorry! I’m on to you, Kiki Lowenstein!” She reached over and grabbed a handful of my hair.
“Ow!” I yelled.
“Hey, lady. Knock it off.” A passerby pulled on Brenda’s sweatshirt. His tug caused her to lose her grip on me.
Two men came to my aid, lending their shoulders to support the booth wall, and a third, a beefy guy who could have been a professional wrestler, raised his huge arms to steady Dodie’s side. “Cut it out,” Big Man said to Brenda.
In response, Brenda bobbed and weaved. She ducked under the framework and lifted one side of our display table. The cash register slid off the surface, hit the ground, and bounced along, jingling merrily. The drawer flew open and money fluttered up and around like a legion of green butterflies chasing copper and silver coins.
“Stop that!” A security guard came over at a trot.
Dodging the mess she’d made, Brenda raced off into the crowd.
Fifty-six
It took longer for us to make a police report and reorganize the booth than it had to set it up originally. Our merchandise littered the grassy aisle and scattered over into other booths. Dodie and I scrambled to pick up metal pegs, shrink-wrapped packages, tools, supplies, and money. Mom helped by sorting the dollar bills and coins as we retrieved them.
The cash register refused to work.
“Thirty-six dollars and twenty-five cents short,” said Dodie punctuating the loss from our drawer with a long and sorrowful sigh. “But that’s nothing compared to the bill for getting this thing fixed.”
We both knew the encounter had cost more than that. While we were putzing around with the booth, we lost out on the opportunity to engage potential customers. Visitors to the art fair gave us a wide berth, noting that our wares were in disarray. We tried to maintain a cheery attitude, but the destruction hurt.
Maybe I should apologize. But why? This wasn
’t my fault! I had done nothing to provoke Brenda Detweiler’s ire. She had thrown her husband out, causing the final breach of their marital contract—and this was after he’d supported her while she was going through drug rehab. Now she wanted Chad Detweiler back, but harassing me wasn’t the way to his heart. Somewhere along the line, she’d failed to take responsibility for her own behavior. I was loathe to apologize to Dodie because that seemed to me to signal that, indeed, I was to blame, just like Brenda had suggested.
The heightened drama around our booth’s near-collapse suited Mom’s sense of theatre. She flitted around “helping” us and chatting with the astonished passers-by about that “crazy woman” who attacked her daughter. I marveled at my mother’s ability to turn every situation into a platform for her to talk about her favorite subject: Lucia Montgomery. While I rehung our page kits, Mom told attendees about her career on stage. “Jealousy! That’s what this was all about. I put up with more than my share of it throughout my career. So many of the other chorus girls wished they had my talent,” she said as she patted her hair into place.
For once I was happy she could weave fanciful tales. Her ongoing commentary kept her busy while Dodie and I worked. Mom positioned herself in the middle of our booth and held court, while we straightened out the mess.
Several page kits and packages of patterned paper were ruined beyond saving. Dodie and I conferred, ultimately deciding to label a cardboard box “damaged goods” and starting the painful process of marking these down.
I was bent over a page kit trying to flatten the crumpled embellishments when I heard a voice sing out, “Luci! Darling, Luci! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
I straightened in time to see a woman set down two suitcases and start running toward my mother. The two hugged and kissed and cooed over each other. The newcomer had a frizzled head of over-processed bleached hair. Her kisses left pink lipstick imprints on my mother’s cheek.
Ready, Scrap, Shoot (A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery) Page 14
