Gilt by Association

by Karen Rose Smith

  “I understand, Mom, I really do. I’ll check things out and text you or leave a message on your phone. Then you’ll know how she is, and when she’s going to be discharged. They don’t keep anyone in the hospital very long anymore. She could be sent home before you even think about visiting her. Nikki was going to come over tomorrow morning. We have a couple more open houses to plan for. Maybe she can stay with Lady, and I can keep Louise company as long as she needs me there.”

  “Thank you, honey. I really appreciate this.”

  Lady and Patches were now awake and had decided a bit of romping was a good idea. Grant was standing by, ready to referee if he had to, but suddenly Patches barked and Lady barked back.

  Her mother asked, “Are you at home?”

  Caprice hesitated, then finally responded, “No, I’m at Grant’s. Bella called me while I was at puppy training class. She needed a cool mist humidifier because Benny is sick.”

  “How sick?”

  “He had a temperature of a hundred and a stuffy nose, but Joe was there when I left, and they’ll be fine. Really.”

  “And you and Grant?”

  Her mother often asked her this question, and Caprice didn’t particularly like the probing. However, she answered patiently, “He brought Lady home so she wouldn’t miss the rest of the class.”

  “Are you staying a while?” Her mother’s voice sounded as if it had a bit of hope in it.

  “No. I still have work to do tonight.”

  “Caprice.”

  Caprice knew what was coming. “Mom, don’t.”

  “I wouldn’t be your mother, a mother who loves you very much, if I didn’t remind you, you have to try to forget about Seth and move on.”

  “Mom, I can’t have this conversation now.”

  “No, I suppose not, but you know it’s true.”

  Caprice wasn’t sure it was true. Where men were concerned, she wasn’t sure about anything.

  “In between classes in the morning, watch for texts,” Caprice reminded her. “And try not to worry about Louise.”

  “Try not to worry about Louise?” her mom asked rhetorically. “That’s like saying your father shouldn’t worry about his brother Dominic who he has loaned money to more than once.”

  “So Dad’s talked to him recently?”

  Her uncle Dominic lived near Baltimore. She remembered a tall, thin man who’d swept her up in his arms when she was little. But she also remembered raised voices between him and her father, between Dominic and Nana Celia and her grandpa when she’d been home from college. After that, they didn’t see him very much. Her father checked in with him now and then, and sometimes drove down to Baltimore on his own to visit. But no one talked about those visits. No one brought up her uncle’s name very much anymore.

  Caprice and her brother and sisters, raised in a Catholic family, going to parochial schools, had been taught to respect their elders. Although their family was fairly open as families go, they all had sensitivity as to what made each other uncomfortable. The subject of Uncle Dominic made everyone uncomfortable.

  Maybe sometime she’d talk to Nana Celia about it, but the time had to be just right.

  “Your father visited your uncle,” her mother responded to her question. “In spite of that new snow, he drove down there yesterday. But Maryland’s roads are always better than ours.”

  “Was the visit . . . worthwhile?”

  “Your father didn’t say a lot about it, just that since his divorce, Dominic might not be able to hold on to the house, and that’s not to spread around.”

  “Of course not.”

  “It’s probably better if you don’t say anything to your brother and sisters about your dad’s visit to Dom. It just sort of slipped out when I got upset.”

  “I understand, Mom.”

  Her mother sighed. “I know you don’t keep secrets from Nikki. Just forget about what I said. If you want to tell her, that’s fine.”

  “Are you and Dad thinking about helping Uncle Dominic?”

  “That could be a bone of contention with Nana Celia. It’s all very complicated.”

  Caprice and her brother and sisters had understood that. Maybe that’s why they’d never asked questions about it.

  “Try to get a good night’s sleep, Mom.”

  After saying good-bye, she ended the call.

  Grant was eyeing her speculatively. “Not that I meant to listen in, but it sounds as if a lot’s going on.”

  That was the understatement of the night.

  The following morning, Caprice parked in the multilevel parking garage at York Hospital. Then she made her way to the main entrance. She already had the information she needed—Louise was in one of the rooms on the cardiac floor. Since she was still here, Caprice guessed they were watching her carefully. All she could get from the nurses’ desk was her room number. HIPAA laws, and all that. Doctors and hospitals were becoming more paranoid about privacy, yet there were multiple systems of computer networks within the healthcare system, and none of those seemed to talk to each other. You could go for a lab test at one facility that would be hooked into the specialist’s computer. But if you went to your family doctor, she might not be able to even access those records. Caprice had the feeling that a good hacker could get anybody’s medical records if he wanted and no one would even know.

  She realized she was distracting herself with those thoughts because she was concerned about Louise. Nikki had assured her she’d take Lady for a walk even in this cold weather, give her lots of praise when she succeeded at a doggie task, and she wouldn’t forget to give Sophia half a dropperful of omega-3 fatty acids with wild anchovy and sardine oil in her lunch. As long as Sophia didn’t know she was eating something good for her, she was fine with it. Again, not so different from humans.

  Caprice passed the gift shop where she’d often found unique presents for friends and members of her family. Then she wended her way to the elevator.

  It didn’t take her long to find Louise’s room. She peeked in the door and saw that Louise had company. Jamie Bergman was there. Caprice noted the plant on the windowsill, greenery mixed with mums. It stood beside a bouquet of tulips and daisies that was probably from Chet.

  Louise caught sight of Caprice right away. She was looking pale and weak, but she was wearing a smile. “Come here, my dear. Chet will be back in a minute. He just went to check with the nurse about something.”

  Caprice hugged Louise and saw that the monitor above her bed was recording her heart rhythms and pulse rate. As Chet had said, she was still being monitored carefully.

  After she leaned away from Louise, she nodded at Jamie. “It’s good to see you again, only not under these circumstances.”

  “I’ll say not,” Jamie agreed.

  Jamie Bergman might be in her fifties, with no gray showing in her hair. But that didn’t mean much these days. A good hairdresser could take care of that. A brunette, Jamie had dark brows, a long nose, and dark rimmed glasses that she often wore on top of her head. Caprice was about ten pounds overweight, and she guessed Jamie was probably twenty pounds overweight. She was wearing jeans that were more snug than Caprice would wear them, and a short striped sweater, with the stripes going the wrong way for a person who might be trying to look thinner. But that was really none of Caprice’s concern. Jamie knew her plants, and over the past year had been a big help when Caprice needed greenery to enhance a home-staging.

  “Do the doctors know yet what caused this?” Caprice asked Louise.

  Chet answered her from the doorway. “The doctors don’t know. But this stomach flu, or whatever it was, disrupted her heart’s rhythm. Even her usual medication couldn’t control it. The cardiologist adjusted it and now she seems to be more stable. But I think we should cancel the open house on Saturday.”

  “Saturday is five days away,” Louise protested. “I don’t want to cancel it. If I’m not feeling well, I don’t have to be there for it. I can visit with a friend for the afternoon. I’m n
ot going to let a little stomach episode throw off our schedule or Caprice’s.”

  Often, when someone thought they had the stomach flu or a virus, it was really food poisoning. Maybe Louise had eaten some bad fish or something. The cause really didn’t matter as long as Louise was okay.

  Jamie motioned to Chet’s flowers. “The bouquet you gave Louise is beautiful, even if it did come from Posies rather than Garden Glory.”

  Posies and Garden Glory weren’t exactly rival businesses. Posies’ main product was a bouquet like Chet had bought. They were known for their unique flower arrangements and their gift baskets. Garden Glory, on the other hand, was a nursery that specialized in landscaping plants, yet they also arranged planters for gifts and decorated them with flowers.

  “When Jamie called the house this morning to arrange the delivery of the plants for the open house,” Chet explained, “I told her Louise was in the hospital and that I’d already put my order in to Posies.”

  “I’m just teasing,” Jamie said amiably. She picked up her tote bag purse. “I’d better be going now. I don’t want to be late for my shift.”

  After there were good-byes all around and Jamie left, Caprice sat by Louise’s bed and patted her hand. “My mom’s worried about you.”

  “So you came to check up on me by proxy?” Louise asked.

  Caprice chuckled. “Something like that. I’m supposed to text her or call and give her a full report. She’ll be here as soon as she can get away from school.”

  “Your mother has been a good friend. Even with her life as busy as it always has been, she’s made time for me.”

  “You make time for her, too.”

  “Oh, my dear, it’s not the same. I’ve never had children and a job to juggle. Yes, I have commitments, charity work, the Garden Club, friends I play bridge with. But that’s not at all the same as teaching teenagers English like your mom does, and taking care of all of you at the same time.”

  Caprice thought about Bella, how tired she looked, how sleep-deprived she was. She considered her own mother being a young mom, a wife, and a teacher, and handling all of it. Maybe kids never gave their parents enough credit. Maybe she could find a present down in the gift shop for her mom for Valentine’s Day, just to show her appreciation. Sometimes a card just wasn’t quite enough. She was sure her dad would send her mom flowers. Nikki might cook her something special.

  Bella? Well, her mom would understand if Bella kind of skipped over Valentine’s Day this year. And then there was Vince. Maybe Caprice should give him a call anyway to find out what was going on with him and Roz. Maybe she should call Roz. She’d probably get a lot more information that way. Of course, then she couldn’t nudge her brother to do something nice for their mom.

  Louise studied Caprice. “Is something wrong, dear? We are ready for Saturday, aren’t we?”

  “I’ll certainly be ready if you want to go through with the open house.”

  “Chet’s already looking at other properties. He was showing me pictures this morning. There’s a house out on Lake Road that looks especially nice. The only problem is there are no housekeeper quarters, and we’d have to decide what to do about Rachel. I’m not sure she wants to move back home with her parents.”

  Chet approached Louise on the other side of the bed and patted her arm. “Maybe we shouldn’t take Rachel with us. But I’ll keep looking. Now that the housing market’s picking up, more homes are for sale. Actually, we might even be able to find a bargain or a place that’s gone into foreclosure. It could take a little while to sell ours in spite of the open house. I don’t want you worrying about it.”

  “You’ve always taken care of me,” Louise said to her husband.

  In some ways, Louise and Chet reminded Caprice of her own parents. They’d been married a long time. They were a team. They seemed to navigate the marital waters without dissension. Her own parents argued sometimes and those arguments could get very loud. But they always made up. Louise and Chet, however, didn’t seem as connected as her own parents did. Could that be because they didn’t have children?

  There was suddenly a noise that came from the phone in the holster on Chet’s belt. It was a vibration as if he had the ring tone turned off.

  “I’m expecting an important text about negotiations. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go outside and take care of it.”

  He stepped outside the door into the hall.

  Louise said, “I know selling the business isn’t easy for him. The negotiations are difficult, too. His lawyer has been on the phone with him often the past few days. Sometimes I’m not so sure he does want to sell. Retirement can be difficult for some men.”

  “He has his hobbies.”

  “Golf and skiing, and you know I hate skiing.”

  Louise disliked cold weather because it could often stir up that arrhythmia. So she never went skiing with her husband.

  “Soon spring will be here and you can play golf together.”

  “Or maybe, better yet, we can be staying in a villa in Tuscany. Now that’s some place I’d like to go.”

  “And Chet?”

  “I think he’d prefer London or Paris, but I’m hoping with all the time in the world in front of us, we can compromise.”

  The bottom line was, that’s how folks stayed married for thirty years. Lots of compromise.

  As Caprice climbed out of her yellow restored Camaro that she parked in the Downings’ driveway on Friday, she saw the greenhouse door was open and raised voices were spewing from inside.

  “I do not want to have that kind of mortgage on the next property,” Chet announced, in a louder than usual voice, as if this argument had been going on for a while.

  “We don’t have to have any mortgage,” Louise countered. “Let’s just buy it outright.”

  “It’s not an investment that way.” He sounded as if he were talking to a child and trying to explain the basics.

  This was the day before the open house and Caprice didn’t know whether to walk into the middle of this argument or head in another direction. She remembered what Chet had said about Rachel when Louise was in the hospital. Maybe we shouldn’t take Rachel with us. Was he trying to cut expenses, as well as downsize so they could travel more? Or was he cutting expenses for another reason?

  Suddenly Caprice didn’t have to make the decision whether to step into the greenhouse or stroll up the walk to the house because Chet said, “There’s just no talking to you sometimes,” and left the greenhouse with purposeful strides.

  When he saw Caprice, he did a one-eighty and smiled. “Good to see you, Caprice. I hope you draw in a lot of buyers. I’m ready to sell.”

  Then he used his vehicle remote, climbed into his SUV, and started the engine.

  Her sixties-style fringed purse on her arm with its large dangling peace sign charm, her boots brushing against her ankles, she went to the greenhouse and stood in the doorway. The glass enclosure was humid, warm, and bright with artificial light as well as sunlight. Louise was sitting on a stool at her potting bench, looking dejected, rearranging seed packets on the back shelf. She simply appeared to be going through the motions.

  She didn’t hear Caprice until Caprice said, “Hi, there.”

  When Louise turned around, she looked teary-eyed. Then she straightened her shoulders and said in an almost cheery voice, “Hi, Caprice.”

  “Is everything all right?” Caprice asked gently.

  “I suppose it is.” She motioned to the seedlings in the peat pots that had just started peeking up out of the ground. “They require so much care. You give them light and water, and even some dedication, but it’s still survival of the fittest.”

  That was an odd way of putting it, Caprice thought. “You mean the hardiest ones grow,” Caprice noted.

  “Exactly. That’s true in life, too, don’t you think? For example, if you were still doing home-decorating instead of home-staging, your business would probably be down the tubes.”

  Louise was probably right ab
out that. Caprice had changed her course when her home-decorating business had fallen off so much she couldn’t pay her bills. It had been a risk to start making contacts to promote her unique staging techniques with a refurbished Web site, ads in the surrounding papers and professional magazines. The bottom line was, she was doing a good job, a different job, of promoting houses to sell, and it had paid off. She thought about the two murder cases she’d solved and the danger she’d been involved in while doing a job. Yes, indeed, she was a survivor.

  “I see your point.”

  Louise pushed her stool away from the potting bench and made her way to a jasmine plant that was blooming in the middle of winter. The greenhouse provided the right conditions. The vine’s sweet scent, along with that of a nearby gardenia, wafted through the greenhouse.

  “It’s the same way in marriage, you know,” Louise mused. “You have to survive it before you can enjoy it.”

  Caprice wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  “Sometimes men are so black and white, so cut-and-dried,” Louise went on. “It doesn’t mean they don’t care. It just means they think differently. You know, the whole Venus versus Mars thing.”

  Caprice smiled. “That’s true. Especially with my brother and my brother-in-law. They might have even come from Jupiter.”

  Louise laughed, and Caprice was glad when it sounded genuine.

  “You’re feeling recovered?” Caprice asked.

  “I am. The medication for my heart is working as long as I stay away from the usual culprits.”