Family Affair

by Saxon Bennett

  Chase poured until the black tar became a milk chocolate color. "In her office?"

  "Si."

  First off, her mother didn't have an office and second, she didn't have a job.

  Rosarita seemed to comprehend Chase's apparent confusion. "The old nursery. Now it's all fancy. You'll like it."

  Chase nodded, took her coffee and made her way down the hall. The nursery had been hers until she moved upstairs into a larger and more remote room with its own bathroom. Her mother had never done anything with the nursery other than strip the sheets and shut the door as if that chapter of their lives was finished and needed no further consideration.

  She stood in the hallway, looking in. All fixed up nice was right, Chase thought. The walls were painted a shade of mocha. The room was filled floor to ceiling with cherry bookshelves that were actually full of books rather than the bric-a-brac she'd seen on HGTV where expensive bookcases were installed in the "library" but contained precious few books. Her mother was ensconced behind an impressive mahogany desk, wearing aquamarine half-moon spectacles and poring over a thick hardbound manual. She looked like she should have been a professor at Hogwarts going over a lesson plan for an incantations class. Behind her was another smaller desk with an iMac laptop poised on Google.

  "What's all this?" Chase said.

  Her mother looked up, quickly recovered from her surprise and announced, "It's my new office. Do you like it?"

  Chase hadn't meant the room but rather her mother's activity. Still to be polite she said, "It's very nice, downright posh." It made her writing studio look like a pit of cast-off furniture. "But what exactly are you doing?"

  "It's my new business venture and these are its accoutrements." Stella behaved as if she were a venture capitalist and this "new venture" were one of many.

  "Which is?" Chase asked. Her eyes wandered to the bookcases and took in the titles. Where had all these books come from? Most of the titles were literary—a complete set of Jane Austen, War and Peace, Wuthering Heights as well as many other classics. Had her mother read them all? If she had she was extremely well-read, an intellectual powerhouse.

  "A private detective. Peggy and I are starting a business. I'm studying for the exam. I've passed my firearms test and got a conceal carry permit."

  "You've got a gun?" Now, Chase was alarmed.

  "A nine-millimeter Glock, to be exact."

  "I see." Chase felt like Dr. Robicheck trying to connect the dots and determine if the patient was a nut job or not.

  Her mother must have read her mind. "I'm not crazy. This is something I'm interested in and we've already had calls. See, here's our business card. We've notified our clients that we are not currently licensed but will be shortly. Most don't mind. They feel comfortable with women."

  "Because they are women?"

  "Yes. We're doing cheating spouses at the moment, but I expect we'll branch. It's very lucrative. After all, how much is a divorce settlement based on adultery worth?"

  Chase sat in a chair across from her mother. "That's really cool. I'm impressed." She studied the business card—I-Spy Detective Agency. It had a silhouette of a person dressed in a trench coat and a fedora encased in a large eyeball. "I like the graphics."

  "Peggy did it. Addison helped. She's a smart kid. She reminds me a lot of you when you were a child."

  Chase missed Addison. She was busy doing the scenery for the Thanksgiving Pageant at school so Chase hadn't been able to see her.

  "So what brings you to town? I didn't think with all the snow you'd come in. They were saying on the news that there hasn't been a storm like this for fifty-nine years."

  "I know. That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Chase fingered the edge of the oak office chair.

  "Snow?" Stella raised her eyebrow.

  "Indirectly. They closed the freeway this time."

  "That's right. You can't stay up there. What if you got stuck when Gitana goes into labor and can't get to the hospital?"

  Both of them looked out the window. It had started to snow again.

  "You should come stay here. She's due in a month or less. Nora can take care of the greenhouse and Gitana can rest up. It'll do her good. The last month of pregnancy is absolute hell. We'll put the queen size guest bed in your old room and turn the den into an office for you. We'll get a router for the Internet so you'll have access." Her mother sat back and nodded like she was checking things off her mental list. "I mean, if that's all right with you."

  "That's what I came to ask you." She didn't exactly look at her mother when she said this.

  "You did?" Her mother sounded incredulous.

  It was odd to be on the same wavelength, Chase diought. "I'll board the dogs."

  Her mother looked affronted. "Nonsense. They hate the kennel. They can stay here."

  "Mom..." They were both startled. Chase hadn't called her that since she was six. Chase tried again, "Mom..." This time it came out better. "They're holy terrors. Remember how they plowed you down at the barbeque?"

  "That was an accident."

  "They'll destroy the yard," Chase countered.

  "I have gardeners. Besides, it's winter and everything is dormant and at the moment covered with snow. You can help Rosarita with cleanup. Your house always looks good so you obviously manage. Chase, the dogs are part of the family. We'll get through it."

  "If they're really bad, they will go to the kennel," Chase said firmly.

  "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for now."

  Chase studied her. It was if aliens had abducted her mother and replaced her with someone really nice.

  "Thanks, Mom."

  "You're welcome. Shall we shoot for this weekend?"

  "That'll work."

  Stella glanced out the window at the falling snow. "It's so beautiful."

  "And dangerous. I better get going." She got up to leave. "I promise to behave."

  "So do I," Stella said.

  The lightly falling snow had become a blizzard by the time Chase picked up Gitana. Chase helped her into the Hummer.

  "I take back everything I ever said about the Hummer." Gitana pulled on her seat belt and brushed off her coat.

  "She was absolutely amazing coming up the canyon. There were cars off the road everywhere. I bet money they close the canyon by tonight." Chase pulled out of the parking lot observing that indeed Nora's truck was still there.

  "Maybe we should have planned for a spring baby," Gitana said, rubbing her protruding stomach.

  "We didn't exactly have a choice, but I don't regret a single thing." Chase made the first tracks out to the county road. All traces of their previous journey on the road had been erased by the insistently productive snowfall.

  "Nora is leaving soon, right?" Chase said as snow plopped down on the windshield like mud patties from on high.

  "Yes. She was waiting for you. I can't believe this weather."

  They were both quiet for a moment, the only sound being the wipers slapping the snow away.

  "Chase, I'm a little worried."

  "About what?" Chase turned onto the 441 and made for home.

  The state road had been plowed, but the snow was accumulating so quickly that it was almost a moot point.

  "The delivery and..."

  "The weather," Chase added.

  "I mean, it probably won't snow." Gitana stared out the window.

  "But what if it does?" Chase glanced at her.

  They watched as a Ford Focus in front of them fishtailed out onto the highway.

  "I talked to my mom. We can stay there. In fact, she insists."

  "What about the dogs?" Gitana said morosely.

  "They can come too."

  The Ford Focus had gained control and sped off. Chase wondered how long the small car would stay on the road.

  "Has she lost her mind?"

  "No, but I think aliens abducted my real mother and lent us a better one." Chase saw the sign for Cedar Meadows indicating one mile and eased her knuckles
off the steering wheel.

  "Are you okay with this?" Gitana asked.

  "It's only a month. I can be good for a month—for Bud."

  "Maybe Jacinda can give us some holy water," Gitana suggested.

  "For me and the dogs?" Chase inquired.

  "Blessings from above can't hurt."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "You're doing what?" Lacey asked.

  "Look, are you coming to Thanksgiving dinner or not?" Chase said. She had somewhat expected this response from Lacey, but this was nothing compared to the next bombshell she was going to drop, the emotional equivalent of the bombing of Dresden.

  She'd been forced to have an emergency session with Dr. Robicheck who kindly pointed out that what Chase viewed as drastic was a progression that had been steadily plodding along since she'd been aware of the pregnancy. She was changing so she could be a decent parent. Chase figured the doctor was right. Most of her swearing had stopped. She was more tolerant and she shopped at Costco. Perhaps, the biggest change was reconciling herself with her mother followed by her close ties with Addison. It was all so unlike her, she often didn't recognize her own thoughts. She approached her life now in an almost benevolent fashion. It was positively frightening.

  "We're staying here until the delivery."

  "You're staying here?" Lacey's tone shrieked of incredulity.

  "Yes, what's wrong with that?" Chase rearranged her pencils in the desk drawer. Her makeshift office still needed some fine-tuning. She was going through Ariana's notes on her mystery novel. She found them quite helpful. Her animosity toward her editor had lessened. This was another oddity.

  "You despise your mother and where'd you put the dogs?"

  Chase whirled a perfect three-sixty in the expensive office chair her mother had purchased. She relished her next statement. "They're here."

  "What!"

  This was good. Rich like the espresso pie at The Flying J Cafe. She should really take Gitana there for lunch. Temporarily living in town had its benefits. She'd been to the library several times getting books, CDs and movies. They were listening to Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart so Bud could bone up on classical music in the womb. Gitana was reading Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days so she'd have an idea of small-town life with its glories and travails. All this was done in an effort to keep Gitana entertained.

  "So are you coming for turkey or what?"

  "Can I bring Jasmine?"

  "Of course. 'You' now includes your partner," Chase informed her.

  Chase could almost see the beaming look on Lacey's face.

  "We'd love to."

  Later that day, Chase availed herself of her mother's library. She pulled out Baudelaire, D.H. Lawrence, Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and J.D. Salinger. Her mother walked in. Chase looked up. "I didn't know you had such a library. Where have all these books been?"

  "In the attic. Your father thought books were tedious and a waste of space."

  Chase was mortified. It was absolutely scandalous.

  Her mother nodded. "You know," she said, sitting on the edge of what could only be called the reading table—a long narrow table with two straightback chairs, two bookstands and green shaded reading lamps so that Chase imagined being in an Oxford or Cambridge library. "We've never really had a talk about your father."

  Chase didn't immediately know where this was going—then, she got it. In the figurative sense she was going to be a father. "Yes."

  "What do you remember of him?"

  She dutifully thought back. She'd been eight when he died. Leaning back in her chair, she decided he was a shadowy figure—a coming and going blur. He was never present in her mind at the breakfast table like fathers in the movies or TV. There was the occasional, mostly silent, family dinner. She remembered her mother at one end her father at the other of the ornate dining room table and that she couldn't wait for dinner to be over. She didn't remember watching him shave, the smell of his cologne, bedtime stories, being hiked up in the air—he was nothing but a cipher in her child's mind.

  "Truthfully, not much. I'd have to see a photo to recognize him."

  Her mother smiled. "Good."

  Chase wasn't certain if her mother said this out of conviction or spite. "I won't be like that."

  "I know you won't." She touched Chase's shoulder.

  Chase felt herself blush so she changed the subject before things got mushy. "Why are so many novels written by men obsessed with genitalia?" She'd just finished Villages by John Updike and another book by Philip Roth. She'd learned more about penises and what they did than she ever cared to know.

  Stella laughed. "Now that you mention it—you're right, at least in twentieth century literature."

  "That's why I'm a fan of the nineteenth," Chase said.

  "I as well. I imagine that their perspective on the world is primarily viewed from behind a pair of furry golf balls and a bratwurst." She laughed.

  Chase didn't laugh. She was worried. "What if Bud has a penis?"

  "There's a fifty-fifty chance. You'd better bone up on your ball skills." This started a whole new rash of laughter.

  Chase buried her head in her hands and moaned.

  When her mother had regained her composure, she patted Chase on the back. "Don't worry. We'll make him into a multicultural, gender-informed, strong yet sensitive man. He'll see through the veil of his little head and steer on without further thought to his nether regions." Stella burst into apoplectic spasms of laughter.

  Chase wondered if her mother had lost her senses.

  "My, we're having a good time in here," Peggy said as she stood in doorway.

  "She is," Chase said disgustedly as she looked around Peggy for a sighting of Addison.

  "She's in the kitchen with Rosarita. She wants to make this smores pie thing for Thanksgiving so she's getting pointers from Rosarita," Peggy informed her.

  "You're still coming to dinner?" Chase asked.

  "Of course. The pie is Addison's personal contribution."

  Stella wiped her eyes. "I haven't laughed like that in years."

  "I'm glad I could be of service," Chase said, getting up.

  "But seriously, Chase, if Bud is a boy we'll make him a good one—so don't worry."

  "Oh, honey, you and Gitana are going to be the best parents on the planet. Don't give it a second thought. Besides, Addison is chomping at the bit to give you all a hand." Peggy took off her blue blazer with gold buttons and draped it over a chair. She looked dressed for the club with her khaki trousers and penny loafers.

  "Thank you, Peggy." As Chase left she overheard Peggy tell her mother "I was at the club and met with Evelyn Myers. She wants us to tail her cheating no-good husband. According to her he's worth a lot."

  Their voices trailed off. It seemed the detective agency was never short of cheating spouses. Those two will be making a fortune, Chase thought.

  In the kitchen, Addison and Rosarita were going over the cutout recipe from the food section of the newspaper and adding its required ingredients to the already daunting grocery list. The three of them were doing the shopping.

  Addison lit up when she saw Chase. "Look at this. Isn't it fabulous," she said, giving Chase the recipe.

  "Wow, that does look good," Chase said.

  "It's not overly complicated. Rosarita says it's okay not like a chocolate mousse, double boiler thing."

  Rosarita clucked and shook her head. "Simple is better."

  "Exactly, especially when there's already a lot to do. Are we ready?" Chase asked.

  "Si," Addison and Rosarita said in unison.

  Chase handed the clipboard with the grocery list to Addison. "You're in charge of inventory accumulation."

  Rosarita cocked her head and looked at Addison. "I'm in charge of checking stuff off the list. I know simple is better, but she's a writer and it's an occupational hazard."

  Chase strode quickly to the door. Rosarita grabbed Addison's arm. "Come, before her big brain gets her in trouble."

 
; Three shopping carts later they returned to the Hummer. With some difficulty and several attempts they got the groceries in the back.

  "Be careful, those are the crescent rolls," Addison said as Chase attempted to shut the tailgate on them.