“It’s barbaric. It’s lame. Guys just like to kill things.”
“No they don’t,” Matthew said with big worried eyes. “Daddy, do you like to kill things?”
“Yes, he does,” Mary said. “He likes to kill nosy little brat boys like you!”
“Stop!” I said, and found myself standing. “Just stop. Now, I had to call my grandmother and admit to her that I was forty years old and didn’t know how to make stupid chicken and dumplings, just so I could make this dinner for you guys and you wouldn’t have to eat out of a box, or a take-out bag, or at a restaurant or what have you! And you guys will shut up and you will eat!”
Everybody just stared at me.
“Quietly. Pleasantly. End of discussion!” I added.
Everyone shut up, probably because I was waving my fork around like a madwoman, and I sat down and ate my dinner as quickly as I could. When I was finished, I said, “Rachel you’ve got dish duty. I’m going to my office.”
That’s where I stayed until it was time for Matthew to do his homework. After I helped him, I went to bed and dreamed about a world where the only things I had to worry about were what type of massage oil I wanted and when my next infusion of chocolate would be.
Two
I sat in my office at the Kendall home, wondering who in the world ever told me that I should be a parent. As I recall, I wanted the job badly, but why hadn’t anybody ever said to me, “Torie, there is no way in hell you can do this job”? Why were changing diapers, juggling feeding times, and getting through potty training easier than getting two teenagers to make it through a day without shaking open the entrance to hell? Well, regardless, it was too late now. It wasn’t as if I could just stop the process and say, “Sorry, everybody out of the boat. I can’t do this.”
I was deep in thought when my sister Stephanie knocked on my door. Stephanie is my half sister and we don’t look that much alike, but we have the same eyes. We got those from our dad. But we’re much more alike on the inside, and I can’t express how scary that is. My father’s genetics are not only overbearing but they’re skewed beyond comprehension. Aside from that, I like Stephanie. She’s the only person I know who will let me eat brownies for breakfast and not tell anyone.
“Okay, so what’s going on?” she asked.
Telepathy. That’s another cool thing about her.
“I have to participate in this birding Olympics tomorrow and I really don’t want to.”
“That’s causing all of this running around and being at the wrong office on the wrong day?”
“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re supposed to be at your office at the Gaheimer House today, not here at the Kendall home.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Friday.”
“It’s not Thursday?”
“If it were Thursday, would you be participating in a birding Olympics tomorrow?”
“Oh,” I said. “So it’s not Thursday.”
“I’m assuming you’re on autopilot and your autopilot thinks you’re at the Gaheimer house, and that’s why you keep bumping into walls.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Look, Torie, is there something you want to talk about?” Stephanie asked.
“I’m having a midlife crisis and there’s not enough chocolate in the world.”
“You’re having a midlife crisis because there’s not enough chocolate in the world, or was that last part just an observation?” Stephanie asked, trying desperately to keep up with me.
“Both.”
“Look…”
“No, I’m being serious,” I said. I glanced around my office. The Kendall home was a new acquisition to my holdings in town. I’d inherited the Gaheimer House from Sylvia and Wilma Pershing when they passed away; it houses the historical society. I had worked for Sylvia for over ten years and had grown up in her shadow, wanting to be just like her. Well, except for the lonely, hateful, spiteful part. She had lived in New Kassel her entire life, and it had meant everything to her. She and her sister had established the Gaheimer House as a tourist attraction and had founded the historical society. She was sort of a big sister to me, what Rachel is to Mary. A big shadow that, although I loved, I sort of wanted out from under.
Enter the Kendall home. I bought it last year and have gone about turning it into a museum for women’s textile arts. I actually get more traffic from the World War I enthusiasts, because one of the upstairs bedrooms has a painfully horrific mural, sketched by a talented—albeit disturbed—hand, depicting the trenches during the war. It’s been photographed and studied, and you can even find details of it online, but I refuse to paint over it. I’d never ruin the original.
“I’m having a real midlife crisis,” I said.
“As opposed to…?”
“People throw that phrase around, and I think I’ve thrown it around myself in the past. It’s like when people say they’re depressed, only they really aren’t. Then one day when they really are depressed, they’re like, ‘Oh, hey, so this is what depression feels like.’”
Stephanie’s hazel eyes were sort of blank.
“Well, that’s what’s happening here. I’m like, ‘Oh, hey, so this is what a midlife crisis really feels like.’”
My sister tucked her hair behind her ears and sat on the edge of my desk. “What gives?”
“My daughter graduates this year.”
“So? Isn’t that a good thing? I mean, the alternative would be that she didn’t graduate. Which would mean that she had either flunked, quit, or … worse. In which case, you’d have a lot more to worry about than the world’s shortage of chocolate.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “What if the world did run out of chocolate?”
“Torie. Focus. What is going on?”
“Well, I knew when I had my kids that they were going to grow up.”
“So?”
“So, I just didn’t think they were going to grow up.”
Stephanie laughed at me then.
“No, I mean, in my mind’s eye it was going to happen. Like a long time down the road. I just didn’t think that I’d be…”
“You’d be what?”
“I don’t know. I feel the same as I did seventeen years ago. I thought I’d be old, or feel old, or that I’d just naturally be ready for her to graduate and leave home—and I’m not. Mentally, on the inside, I’m still that twenty-three-year-old girl who struggled for sixteen hours to bring Rachel into the world. I’m just not ready.”
“Well, she is ready,” Stephanie said. “So you’re going to have to deal with it.”
It was the exact same thing I would have said to her or anybody else, but I didn’t want to hear it. I shrugged. “I dunno, there’s more to it than that. I can’t put it in words.”
“Torie, the world doesn’t end when she graduates.”
“No, hers is just beginning. But it changes everything. Everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I’ve ever been just changes.”
“Oh boy,” she said, and reached for the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Helen. We need serious chocolate.”
“Joke all you want.”
She hung the phone up and then she reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’ve got the Olympics to get ready for.”
“Right, I know. What do I need?”
“Binoculars.”
“Yeah, I’ve got those. Do I need bug spray? Because I hate mosquitoes.”
“It’s December. We may not have actual deep-freeze winters here anymore, but we don’t have any mosquitoes in December. At least I hope not, because that would be … well, it would have to mean something globally bad.”
“I’m taking some just in case,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and laughed. “You do that.”
“So what else?”
“Comfy shoes, warm socks, and dress in layers, because it will get cold at night. Sleeping bag—ar
e you allowed to sleep?” she asked. “Oh, and you have to have a notebook and pencil to write down all the birds you see.”
“What am I supposed to write down? The only birds I know when I see them are a cardinal and a blue jay. All of those brown birds just sort of look alike. So, what am I supposed to write down? ‘Three brown birds with stripes’? ‘One brown bird with a white belly’? I have no clue what I’m doing.”
“Then I suggest you go and purchase a bird-identification book. They’ve got them in the visitors center.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because we’re right on the river, and evidently this is a hot spot for birds. I’m told that we have one of the few groups of Eurasian tree sparrows in the country.”
I just stared at her. “Why aren’t you going on the birding Olympics?”
“Because I don’t have a stepfather who hates me,” she said and smiled. “Now, you really need to be at the Gaheimer House, because I’m supposed to be covering this house.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.” I grabbed my purse and jacket and headed for the door. “By the way, Rachel starts giving tours at the Gaheimer House next week.”
“I know,” she said. “She called and told me.”
“Okay, then. I’m off to buy a bird book.”
“Oh, wait, one more thing. Somebody named…” she began, stammering. She thunked her forehead with her finger and then smiled. “Glen Morgan called.”
“Glen Morgan? Should I know him?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “He said he needed to speak to you about our grandpa’s music. Or something to that effect. He wouldn’t tell me anything. He said he could only speak to you. Even after I told him that he was my grandpa, too.”
Our grandpa had been one of the premier fiddle players of southeast Missouri in his day. His day would have been a long time ago—like during the twenties. There were few people left alive who remembered him unless they were related or a musicologist. Since I knew everyone who was related to him within three generations, I figured Mr. Morgan had to be a musicologist.
“You look clueless,” Stephanie said.
“I’ll call him Sunday, after the Olympics.”
“He didn’t leave a number. He said he’d call back.”
I thought about it a moment and wondered what he could possibly want. I was always on the lookout for new photographs of my family or any new tidbit of information, so, mostly, my interest was piqued and I couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. There was a part of me, though, that kept thinking I ought to know the name Glen Morgan. It nudged and tickled at the back of my brain, but my poor brain was either too tired or too stubborn to turn loose any knowledge of one Glen Morgan. So I’d just have to wait until he called back.
“If he calls tomorrow, tell him to try me on my cell phone.”
“You’re taking your cell phone to the birding Olympics? If Eleanore finds out, she will have a cow.”
“Well then, call the National Enquirer, because Eleanore can just have a cow. Maybe she’ll have a two-headed cow, but there is no way in hell I’m going to be out in the woods for twenty-four hours without a way to contact the outside world. Besides, it’s not like Eleanore’s going to be right beside me the whole time.”
“All right, I’ll give him the message.”
I gave her a quick hug and left.
Tobias Thorley was working at the visitors center when I entered it at just a few minutes past eleven. Tobias was a skinny, wiry man with a hook nose, and he could play an accordion better than anybody for a hundred miles. Okay, well, he was probably the only accordion player within a hundred miles, but still. He was very good and had been entertaining the tourists of New Kassel since the 1970s. He was also a plant expert and an amazing gardener. “Hi, Tobias. How are you? Ready for Christmas?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t feel like Christmas. It’s too warm.”
“I know.” It had been unseasonably warm for the past few winters. Even though we might get a cold spell and snow now and then, the overall winter was nearly nonexistent. Not like when I was a kid, or even ten years ago. A person used to be able to ice-skate on ponds or lakes in this area in the winter, but not in the past few years. Very sad, when you think about it. “Look, I’m here to get a bird-identification book.”
“Sure thing,” he said and handed me two of them. “I’d get this one.”
I looked at both of them and went with his suggestion, because, well, he was Tobias and knew all sorts of things that I didn’t. I trusted his judgment. “Are there really this many kinds of birds in eastern Missouri?”
“Sure. Not all at the same time, though. You need to look at the map; it will tell you their winter range.”
“Oh, I gotcha.” About that time, a bird landed on the patio outside the door. “What kind of bird is that?”
“Starling. Female.”
“You mean you can tell the difference between male and female?”
“Some birds,” he said. “So, you’re participating in the Olympics, I’m taking it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And you?”
“Yup. I’ll be there.”
“Should I take a sleeping bag and a tent?”
“There’s no sleeping,” he said. “Otherwise, you’d miss all the owls. And bats.”
“Bats? Bats are birds? We have bats?”
“Of course we have bats, and no, bats aren’t birds, but I think they’re nifty to watch anyway.”
“Well, for my sake, I hope we don’t see any bats.”
He laughed at me and then said, “So, you ready to put in that garden this spring?”
Smiling, I tucked the bird book in my purse. “If you will help me, I’m up for it.”
“Good,” he said. I’m not a plant person at all. I loved my grandparents’ farm, and I could spend hours in their orchard. I used to eat Grandma’s strawberries right out of the patch. Either the green thumb gene passed me up or I never gave it a full chance. Well, after last year’s successful rose show, I decided I wanted to plant things at my new house. Tobias was my most obvious choice for help, because the man could get anything to grow in the worst conditions.
I headed for the Gaheimer House, which was just down a few blocks on the main road in town, called River Pointe Road. Most of the townsfolk and shop owners were busy getting the Christmas decorations up because this weekend was our big holiday kickoff. Many people disagree with me, but I’ve made it a point not to decorate until the first weekend in December because I believe that Thanksgiving should be its own separate holiday. We all took a vote one year and the majority—surprisingly—agreed with me. So the big New Kassel decorating frenzy doesn’t happen until the first Thursday and Friday of December. Saturday would be the beginning of our choir festival, while I would be out in the surrounding woods, hunched down with binoculars, looking for birds.
My stepfather, Colin Brooke, was walking down the street just as I reached the Gaheimer House. Colin used to be the sheriff in town, and now he was the mayor. Which was sort of good and sort of bad. It was good that the old mayor was gone and it was good that Colin was no longer in my hair as acting sheriff. That meant that he could no longer arrest me, which has happened more times than you would think. If you think being arrested by the man who will eventually become your stepfather doesn’t put a strain on your relationship, it does. At any rate, it was good that he was no longer in a position to arrest me. It was bad because he was absolutely bored at being mayor and he had to be mayor for another two years. If Colin is bored, he makes everybody else miserable. But I had news for him. The townspeople—myself included—really liked the new sheriff, and so if he thought when his term as mayor was over that he’d just waltz back into his old job of sheriff, he just might get surprised.
“Hello, Torie.”
“Just keep walking. I’m not speaking to you today.”
“What did I do?”
“You got me into this birding Olympics,” I said.
He laughed, and I wanted to hit him. Colin was a big guy—ridiculously tall and casting shadows all about all the time. My mother fed him way too well, and as if he hadn’t been big enough before, he’d now “filled out” to his capacity. Any more “filling out” and I could officially call him overweight, but he just hovered on the edge. On one hand, I felt sorry for him. My mother was the greatest cook in the world, and anybody would expand their normal boundaries while living with her.
“Hey, I’m going to be there, too,” he said.
“You are?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Oh, great. So, how exactly does this work?”
“We split up into groups of two. One looks for the birds; the other one writes down the birds they see. Simple as that.”
“Do we move around, or stay in one place?”
“That’s up to the birders. Everybody has their own secret way of doing things. I’ve even been told that Eleanore brings a bag of sunflower seeds to entice the birds.”
“Is that cheating?”
He shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Who’s my partner?”
“Call Eleanore and ask her.”
“Who are you with?” I asked.
“I’m with Elmer,” he said and rubbed his hands together. Elmer Kolbe, our semiretired fire chief, is a renowned outdoorsman. “I smell victory.”
Victory was actually my real first name. There was a joke in there somewhere, but I was entirely too irritated to find it. “Great,” I said. “May the best birder win.”
With that, I entered the Gaheimer House and shut the door behind me. Colin and I actually had more in common than one would think. We both loved my mother, we both hated bad guys, and we both thought the other was the most irritating person on the planet. It was enough to keep the family get-togethers civil. And besides, my kids were crazy about him, and it’s difficult to dislike somebody entirely if your kids like him. Basically, we’d given up on all-out animosity and settled in a precarious relationship based on annoyance.
I kept myself busy for the next few hours. I called my local costume maker and ordered two dresses for Rachel to give the tours in. One was a Civil War–era costume. Since discovering that the Gaheimer House was part of the Underground Railroad, we had focused a little more on the Civil War era when giving the tours of the house. I also had a dress commissioned for her from the turn of the twentieth century. Rachel was small, so there was no way she could fit into my dresses or Stephanie’s, or even any of Sylvia’s old dresses, so I figured I might as well get her a few made for herself.
The Blood Ballad Page 2
