by JB Lynn
“She’s a beautiful woman,” he said, staring into his coffee cup like it was a portal that revealed a vision of my mother. “You don’t look at all like her.”
I spluttered a bit at that.
Realizing he’d just told me I wasn’t beautiful, the mobster shook his head. “Not like that. Your mother has this fragile, ethereal look to her. Like if you snapped your fingers she’d just disintegrate into smoke, you know?”
I nodded. I thought the same of her. She seemed to be constantly hovering on the cusp between two worlds.
“But you,” he pointed at me, “first time I saw you, I knew who you were, what you are.”
The first time I’d met him, I’d been afraid he was going to kill me. “And what’s that?” I asked curiously. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I genuinely wanted to know what he thought.
“A survivor,” he replied without hesitation. “Someone who’d taken a beating, who’d keep getting the snot beaten out of her by life, but would always get up. Kind of like one of those inflatable boxing figures that kids hit and bop right back at them. You know the kind I mean?”
I nodded.
“That’s what I saw when I met you. Resilience and strength. Someone who wouldn’t let life keep her down.” He reached across the table and patted my arm. “And I was right.”
I got a little choked up at his obvious pride in me.
“Angel’s a decent boxer,” he continued, grabbing another cookie. “You should get him to give you some lessons. Might help you alleviate some of that stress.”
“Not sure anything can help with that,” I muttered. Except maybe some sugar and fat, they’d offer some temporary relief. I grabbed another cookie too.
“It’s not good,” the mobster opined. “You’re passing along your stress to your niece.”
I frowned, not liking that idea. “Am I?”
“She’s unhappy.”
I pressed my back against my chair. “Did Angel tell you that?”
Delveccio shook his head. “Naaah. The kid has his faults, but one of his greatest strengths is that he knows how to keep his mouth shut. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The sparkle in that little girl’s eyes is fading. She’s not happy.”
“Her parents both died, she’s living in the equivalent of a carnival fun house, and she’s stuck with me,” I muttered. “I can’t blame her.”
“You’re doing your best.”
I clenched my jaw. “My best isn’t good enough.”
Unlike everyone else who hurried to tell me that yes, my best was good enough, the mobster stayed silent.
I hung my head and squeezed my eyes shut so that he couldn’t see the tears that threatened to run down my face.
“Angelina isn’t mother material either,” he said quietly. “And yet, without her, I’m afraid Dominic won’t get better.” His voice cracked at the end of the heartfelt confession.
Dashing away my wayward tears, I looked at him and saw his eyes too were glistening.
“Will you help me?” he asked.
Remembering the conversation I’d had with Angel about Dominic’s mother, I had a pretty good idea what Delveccio was going to request, but I still asked, “With what?”
“Getting Angelina out of that place.”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, shaking my head.
“But he needs her.” Delveccio grabbed my hand to prove his point. “And you’ve got the perfect opportunity to get to her with your mother being missing.”
“Are you responsible for that?” I asked sharply.
“Of course not.” Releasing my hand, he reared back in his chair, looking hurt that I’d even suggest such a thing.
An uncomfortable silence stretched between us.
“I need you to do this, Maggie. For Dominic.” His desperation tugged at my heartstrings.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly.
“Name your price.”
I shook my head. “It’s not about money. They’ll have tightened security with my mother having gotten loose.”
“You’re resourceful. If anyone can do this you can.”
“I can try,” I said carefully, not wanting to disappoint.
But in my mind, the distance between trying and successfully liberating his daughter were very far apart indeed.
Chapter Seven
After the friendly neighborhood mobster left, I closed up the shop and hurried home, eager to discuss my latest problems with the animals.
I snuck into the B&B through the storm door entrance so as to not alert any of the humans I had returned.
“Hey gang,” I greeted.
“Gotta! Gotta!” was DeeDee’s reply.
The other two remained silent.
I let the dog out to pee and turned my attention first to the lizard lounging on a piece of driftwood. “I’ve got another job from Delveccio.”
God didn’t respond, but Piss, her curiosity getting the best of her, came out from under the couch. “What kind of job?”
“He wants me to get his daughter out of the nut house.”
“Facility,” God corrected, unable to help himself.
“Facility,” I acknowledged.
“Why?” the cat wanted to know.
“He thinks it will help Dominic’s recovery.”
“Smart,” the lizard drawled. “The man is more intelligent than I give him credit for.”
“So I told him we’d try,” I said.
“We’d?” God mocked. “Unless your plan is to get yourself a room there, I sincerely doubt you said we.”
“I’d try,” I corrected. “But I hope you’ll help me.”
“Don’t you have other things to worry about?” Piss asked. “Like finding your mother?”
“Or your sister?” God added.
I shrugged. “I didn’t think it was wise to turn down the stressed-out mobster.”
“She has a point,” the cat said to the lizard.
“We’ll have to come up with a plan,” the lizard said.
“Plan?” DeeDee barked, bounding back into the basement.
“It doesn’t include you, cretin,” God boomed.
DeeDee lowered her head to the ground dejectedly.
“Hey!” I shot the lizard a warning look. Then I patted the Doberman’s back. “I have a special project for you to help me with.”
Her head popped up and she looked at me hopefully. “Help DeeDee.”
“I want you to help me cheer up, Katie,” I told her. “She seems unhappy.”
“No.”
I looked at the dog, trying to figure out what that meant in her mangled version of grammar. “No?”
“Help won’t I Katie.”
Confused, I stared at her. “Why not?”
Instead of answering me, she went and curled up in a corner.
I looked to Piss for an explanation. “Why won’t she help?”
Piss took her time licking a paw before she deigned to reply. “Ever since you brought the girl here, you’ve been ignoring her.”
I looked to the dog who’d shifted so that her back was toward me. I truly sucked at the dog parenting thing too. “I’m sorry. There’s just so much to do.”
“We all feel the way she does,” the cat informed me.
“Speak for yourself,” God drawled.
“I’m sorry, guys. I really am. I’m being torn in a million directions but I’m doing my best.”
“Enough best isn’t your good,” DeeDee panted.
“What?”
“She said your best isn’t good enough,” God said quietly.
I stared at the lizard. “Do you agree with her?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even move.
My cell phone buzzed. Needing the distraction, I answered it without looking at who the caller was. “What?”
“I need to see you,” a gravelly voice replied.
Fearing that the reporter wanted to ask me about the plot to kill Delveccio, I told him, “This isn’t a good time
, Jack.”
“It’s important, Maggie.” His voice crackled with intensity.
“I told you, it’s not—”
“It’s about your sister, Darlene,” he interrupted.
My heart skipped a beat. I desperately wanted to know what he had to say about my missing sister, but if my discussion with the animals had taught me anything, it was that I wasn’t paying enough attention to what, or who, mattered most. Darlene had been missing for years, my mother for hours. I had to act on the more immediate problem. Besides, my pets could help me search for Mom, so they’d feel included.
“Tonight?” I said to Jack. “Around nine at the diner on Fourth Ave?”
“Okay. But don’t tell anyone you’re meeting me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean it, Maggie. No one can know.”
“No one,” I parroted.
“I’ll see you at nine.” He disconnected the call.
“What was that all about?” the cat asked.
“He wants to talk about Darlene.”
Over in the corner, DeeDee sighed her displeasure.
“Who wants to go for a ride to look for Mom?” I asked.
DeeDee leapt up, eyes shining, butt wiggling. “Ride?”
“You’ll need me,” God declared.
“What about you?” I asked the cat.
I expected her to be standoffish, but even she looked excited about the prospect of going out.
“You bet your britches, sugar.”
The three of us piled into the car, off on our great search mission. I didn’t really think we’d find any trace of my mother, but it was an excellent chance to bond with my closest friends.
“First stop, ice cream,” I declared.
I knew, from the look God gave me from his perch on the dashboard, that he saw right through me, but he didn’t seem to disapprove.
“Ice cream,” DeeDee panted excitedly.
“Cream,” Piss purred appreciatively.
I got them each a kiddie’s cup of vanilla. I got myself a cup of mint chocolate chip, figuring that mint was an herb, herbs are kind of like veggies, and that made it a healthier choice. To cement my good eating habit, I asked for two cherries on top. Fruit, you know.
The three of us ate our ice cream in the parking lot, shivering against the cold, caused not by brain freeze, but by the blustery winter wind.
God chose to stay in the relative warmth of the car while we feasted.
Afterward, we got back in the car and I rode around town to some of the familiar sites. The trees that my parents had planted in honor of the births of their children. The park where Mom had taken us to play as kids. The field that every year hosted the carnival that Darlene disappeared from.
We ended at the cemetery. While I no longer believed Darlene was buried there, Teresa, Katie’s mother, was. I got out of the car slowly, feeling like I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with her. Hoping that if I voiced some of my fears about how things were going with her daughter, I’d find a solution to the problem.
I popped the lizard into my bra and let the dog and cat out. As I approached Teresa’s headstone, I saw that someone had left fresh flowers.
“Well, now I know for sure my mother wasn’t here,” I muttered.
“How?” Piss asked.
“Flowers.”
The cat eyed them curiously. “She doesn’t like mums?”
“She thinks flowers are wasted on dead people. ‘Such beautiful things should only be shared with those who can appreciate them’,” I quoted. “If she’d been here she would have taken them for herself.”
“That’s cold,” Piss said.
“Cold,” DeeDee agreed.
“It’s quite logical though,” God said, playing devil’s advocate. “The dead can’t enjoy them.”
“It’s less about the recipient,” I explained, “than it is about the giver. When someone dies you feel helpless, like you can’t do anything for them. Leaving flowers is something concrete you can do. Proof that your loved one isn’t forgotten.”
“Didn’t flowers why you bring?” DeeDee asked.
I didn’t have an answer.
But God did, “Because she thinks of Teresa every day. She doesn’t need a harvested symbol to know she hasn’t forgotten her.”
I nodded, grateful for his acknowledgement of my sorrow.
“Squirrel!” DeeDee barked, racing away.
“Get back here,” Piss yowled, taking off after her.
“So much for the solemn remembrance,” God quipped.
“It’s okay,” I forgave. “No point in getting mired in grief.” I watched the dog and cat racing between the grave markers. It was the most excitement I’d seen in the cemetery and I found myself chuckling at their antics.
I was about to call them back when a movement caught my eye in the distance. A woman, her back to me, was hurrying away.
I felt a pang of regret, hoping my pets hadn’t interrupted her visitation.
“Back in the car,” I called, waving my arm and trudging back toward the vehicle. As I walked, I realized my teeth were chattering against the cold. DeeDee was the first back, followed closely by Piss. For a beat-up cat, she moved with surprising speed.
It wasn’t until I’d started the car, that I realized the mourning woman had turned around to watch our exit. We were too far away to see her face, and she wore a heavy coat, wool hat, and sunglasses, but I got the distinct impression that I knew her.
God, who I’d put back on the dashboard, followed my sightline. “Something wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” I murmured. “I have a feeling I’m missing something, but I don’t know what.”
Chapter Eight
It was a feeling I couldn’t shake as, after having brought the cat and dog home, I searched my mother’s room at the nut house…pardon me, facility.
The staff gave me a wide berth, whether it was because they’d lost one of their patients or because she’d managed to give them the slip once again, I didn’t know, but I was grateful for the space.
Closing the door to mom’s room, and jamming a chair beneath the handle so that it couldn’t be opened easily, I hurried to her dresser and pulled out a metal lock box from the bottom drawer.
“Your father has the key,” God reminded me.
“I brought a paper clip.” I pulled it out and straightened the metal. “I’ll pick the lock.”
“That only works in the movies,” the lizard sniffed haughtily.
Instead of listening to him, I inserted the end of the clip into the lock, jiggled it and heard a satisfying click. “Voila!”
“Impressive,” God admitted grudgingly.
I removed a combination of feathers, coins, movie ticket stubs, and jewelry. None of them gave a clue as to where my mother might have gone.
I pulled out a photograph of two young girls, twins, about Katie’s age. I stared at the picture, studying it intently. The kids looked familiar, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen them before.
“What the hell?” I muttered. “Who are you?”
God, who was sitting on my shoulder, peered at the faces. “Curious.”
“You’re a big help.”
“I’m an extra set of eyes, not a miracle worker who can pull answers from thin air.”
There was a tentative knock at the door.
“Just a minute!” I stuck the picture in the back pocket of my jeans. Slammed the lock box shut and returned it to its hiding spot.
The door handle was jiggled impatiently.
“Coming,” I called. As I pulled the chair away, God dove headfirst down my shirt.
I’d expected to find a nurse, or orderly, or maybe a hospital administrator when I opened the door. Instead I came face-to-face with the very woman I was supposed to smuggle out of there.
Angelina, Dominic’s mother.
“Get in.” Grabbing her arm, I pulled her into the room and shut the door again. I kept the chair far away. If she freaked out on me again,
like she had once in a stairwell, I wanted to be able to beat a hasty retreat.
