“I loved desert camping for years. You would not believe the stars at night out there. Bobby Lee and I used to make the kids get up in the morning and start the fire—it gets cold out on the desert once the sun goes down. One year both kids were in school, so it was just the two of us, and we’d zipped our sleeping bags together to help us keep warm. The second morning, I woke up and thought Ronnie was feeling frisky, tickling my tummy, then I saw he was sound asleep with his back to me. I wasn’t sure what was sharing my side of the bag, but I slid out of that sleeping bag in one motion, and—I don’t know how—without unzipping it. That woke Bobby Lee, and I whispered at him to lay real still. I unzipped my side as slow as I could—” Lucille demonstrated, reaching as far out as she could with one hand, fingers extended, head half turned away. Jan giggled with excitement. Lucille continued, “I turned the top back verrrrrry carefully—and there, big as my arm, was a big ol’ rattlesnake!”
“No!” said Jan, horrified. “What did you do? What did Bobby Lee do?”
“Nothing. We just froze, like statues. And after a while, its wee little brain realized the cold morning air was chilling its scales and it slithered off, and that was the last time I went camping.”
“Whew, I don’t blame you! That’s worse than our bear! Ronnie still goes off to the Boundary Waters for a week every summer with his friends, but none of the rest of us has been back, not even Hugs.”
“Where did your husband get that nickname?”
“He was a very affectionate little boy, so that’s what his grandmother called him, and when he found out that Harvey was the name of an invisible rabbit in a Jimmy Stewart movie, he decided Hugs, bad as it was, was better than his real name. One reason it stuck was that he was a wrestler in high school and college and famous for his grip.” Jan smiled. “Plus, he’s still very affectionate.”
Lucille laughed. “That is adorable! So what do you do instead of camp?”
“Well, boating runs in the family. We have a boat, and so does my brother. Mother sold her powerboat when Dad died, but she kept a canoe and recently bought a kayak. This is Minnesota, after all. When they said ‘Ten Thousand Lakes,’ they underestimated. We fish and water-ski and just putt around Lake Minnetonka all summer.”
“You water-ski? Why, so do we! We have friends, Mickey and Jacki Morris, who have a boat with this huge motor, and they take us out six or eight times a year. We have a little boat of our own, but it’s way more fun on Mickey and Jacki’s boat. Can you ski on one ski? I can.”
“No, but Hugs can. He can even ski barefoot.”
“Bobby Lee tried that and took four bad spills before he gave it up. Maybe your husband can tell him how it’s done.”
“Maybe he can—but personally, I think the secret is in the feet. Hugs’s shoe size is twelve, extra wide.”
“Bobby Lee’s is only nine—but my son Glen’s is fourteen. I’m telling you, I was about to study how the Chinese did that foot-binding thing when Glen was in high school. He was going through shoes like I go through embroidery floss.”
“I’m glad I didn’t think of it. I might’ve tried it with Reese. His feet are even bigger than his father’s.”
Their sandwiches came at last, and after a few bites and exclamations of pleasure, Jan took her courage by both hands. “Lucille,” she asked, “did you Google me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did you use the Google search engine to see if you could find out about me?”
“No. Why, should I have? What would Google have told me about you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never Googled myself.”
“Do you have a Web site?”
“No.”
“Me, neither. I wonder what Google would say about me?”
Jan asked thoughtfully, “What would you like it to say?”
Lucille took a bite of her sandwich and thought that over while she chewed. After a few moments, she said, “That I hope no one thinks I love my mama and daddy less because I’m trying to find my biological family.”
JAN came into Crewel World the next day, Saturday, to buy some tatting thread. “I’m going to knit a bedspread,” she said.
Betsy held up the single ball of thin white thread Jan was buying. “With number three thread? That should take you a few years. And I don’t think this single ball would be enough to knit even an edge on a bedspread.”
Jan laughed. “No, it’s for a dollhouse bedspread. A friend at the clinic bought a dollhouse for her daughter, but now she’s caught the bug herself and won’t let Chloe anywhere near it. This will be a birthday present for her.”
“Do you need a set of needles, too?” People in business for themselves quickly learn to never pass up an opportunity to make a sale.
“No, I’ve already got four pairs of double-zero steels.” As Betsy opened her cash register, Jan asked, “Has Lucille been in today?”
“No, I haven’t seen her. Are you still thinking you’re twins separated at birth?”
Jan smiled. “You know, I almost could. It’s weird how alike we are. Like, we both used to love camping, but wouldn’t go now for a million dollars. We both love swimming, water-skiing, and fishing—though where on earth you can find a lake big enough or a river deep enough to ski on in all of Texas, I don’t know—and we both love it when we can mix a conference or seminar with pleasure travel to make it tax deductible.”
“Now that last one really is a peculiar coincidence!” Betsy said.
Jan’s smile turned a little odd. “I know. You know what’s even odder? She tells great stories, just like my uncle Stewart. And she knows it. Her eyes twinkle just like his when she tells one. Betsy, what do you think? Could Lucille and I be related?”
Betsy didn’t know what Jan wanted to hear, so she fell back on the truth. “I don’t know. Is there a mystery in your genealogy? An uncle who was suspected of having an affair? An aunt who disappeared for, oh, say, nine months?”
“Not that I know of. Well, except the man part. I mean, how long does it take to father a child? Part of an evening? Shoot, a coffee break will do for some of them.”
Betsy grimaced. “But that would mean…”
“I know. And there’s never been a hint of anything like that.”
“Yet, you two look so much alike that it’s hard not to think there’s a genetic link in there somewhere. I’m sure you’ve heard about those cases of identical twins separated at birth who turn out to have a lot of traits in common. But we’re not talking about identical twins here, are we?”
“No, of course not. For one thing, she’s nearly five years older than I am.” Jan cocked her head sideways. “And that would mean Uncle Stewart, if he is her father, became a father at the age of twelve.” She snorted. “Not very likely.”
Betsy hesitated, then said, “Could your father…?”
Jan immediately shook her head, then the movement slowed as she thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It would have happened when they were dating, before they got married.” She counted on her fingers, eyes rolled upwards. “Of course, he would have been seventeen, which is old enough. And unwed mothers back then put their babies up for adoption, didn’t they?”
Betsy nodded. “That could account for it.”
“Still, it’s hard to think of my father doing something like that and never mentioning it.”
“Why would he tell his children about it?” asked Betsy. “If he told anyone, it would be his wife.”
“Well, Mother never said a word about it.” Jan grimaced. “But why would she?” She put her change into her wallet. “I’m having lunch with Mother today,” she said. “I’m going to ask her.”
JAN met her mother for lunch an hour later at Antiquity Rose, a combination tearoom and antique shop. “Mother, I want to ask you something,” she said over the house salad.
“Certainly.”
“There’s a woman visiting here from Texas. She came into Crewel World, and Betsy mistook her for me. Mother,
she looks enough like me to be my sister. Now, I know both Jason and I look more like Dad than you. Is it possible that he…you know?”
“No, it is not possible!” She looked indignant at the very idea.
“Well, is there something you haven’t told me about the rest of our family?”
Her mother stared nonplussed at her for as long as it took to take a breath. Then she said, “Certainly not! Anyway, no one in our family ever went to Texas.”
“She wasn’t born in Texas. She discovered she was adopted after her parents died and has been trying to find out something about her biological roots. She says she came from a Minnesota adoption agency, but she can’t find any records of her birth parents.” Jan smiled. “I wasn’t one of a pair of identical twins, was I?”
Recovered, her mother smiled back. “No, I think I would have noticed if you were. So this person is your age?”
“She says she’s a few years older, though she doesn’t look it. But it’s the oddest thing: we not only look alike, we are alike, in a lot of ways. We have so many things in common! If she’s not yours, or Dad’s, I wonder where she came from?”
“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if there were children with a family resemblance scattered all over the place, thanks to your Uncle Stewart!”
“Mo-ther! How can you say that?”
Her mother offered a pained smile. “Oh, you’re right, of course. His two most obvious faults argue against that. First, he is possibly the laziest human alive. Anyone lazier couldn’t be troubled to breathe or blink, and so wouldn’t have survived. Second, he drinks. And as a nurse, you know what drink does to male, er, capability. Who was it who said, ‘Liquor enhances desire while diminishing performance’? So even if he fell over a willing female, or one fell over him…no.” She shook her head with a regretful smile.
“He has four daughters, so…” Jan boggled at getting even more specific. “And anyway, he’s not an alcoholic, not really!”
“Well, it’s true that I don’t remember seeing him drunk until he got into high school.” Jan’s mom gave her daughter a sardonic look as she took a drink of her Arnold Palmer—half iced tea, half lemonade, an Antiquity Rose specialty.
“Oh, Moth-er!” said Jan again.
“You sound just like you did when you were fourteen,” Susan said, amused.
“I do? I was imitating Ronnie.” Jan’s younger son was at a tiresome stage of teendom.
Her mother raised her eyes to heaven. “It’s a mother’s hope come true: I often wished you’d have children who would give you the same grief you gave me.”
“Oh, Moth-er!”
“It’s never as funny the third time.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” sighed Jan. “It’s even less funny the twenty-fifth time.”
Her mother cast her amused eyes heavenward again but didn’t say anything.
“Katie thinks she’s after our money.”
“Who’s after whose money?”
“Lucille, our Texas visitor. After Aunt Edyth’s. I think Lucille is not well off, and Kate thinks she might have heard about Aunt Edyth and decided to see if she could cut herself a piece of that pie.”
Jan’s mother snorted. “I wish her luck trying. She’s not mine, and, thanks to DNA testing, people can’t play tricks like that anymore, no matter how much they look like a member of the family. With your medical training, you must know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Oddly, the thought made her a little sad.
After lunch, Jan went across the street to the parking lot, a hollowed-out space in the center of the block, surrounded by the backsides of stores. She walked into the center and paused. As usual, she wasn’t sure just where she’d left her car. She finally spied it farther down a row than she thought she’d put it. It was a cranberry red PT Cruiser, an eminently spottable car, and she hurried to it. She put the key in the door lock, but it wouldn’t turn. Then she noticed the pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. She stepped back, hoping no one noticed her trying to get into someone else’s car and saw her own in the next row, about six cars nearer the lane that led out.
“Hi, Jan!” came a woman’s voice, her Texas accent making it sound like, “Hah, Jee-an!” She looked around and saw Lucille in a deep orange sunsuit waving at her. With Lucille was a tall, deeply tanned, attractive man with curly silver-and-black hair, and a very white grin.
“Hi, Lucille!” called Jan, waving back. She trotted toward the pair. “Having trouble finding my own car,” she noted as she came up to them.
“This is my husband, Bobby Lee. Bobby Lee, this is Jan Henderson, a fellow stitcher.”
“How do?” said Bobby Lee in a drawl even more marked than Lucille’s.
Lucille said, “I saw you admiring my car. Are you thinking of buying a Cruiser? They’re super fun to drive, and”—she grinned—“they’re easy to find in a parking lot.”
Jan turned to look again at the red car. “That PT is yours?”
“Sure! Why?”
“Because that one right over there is mine.” Jan pointed at her own cranberry red vehicle, and the pair turned to look.
Lucille exclaimed, “No, that’s too much, that’s way too much, that’s insane!”
“Well, ain’t that a kick in the head,” said Bobby Lee. “Luci here has wanted one ever since she saw it on the Internet. And it had to be that color red, too.”
“When I saw one on the Internet,” Jan said, “I thought it was a concept car, and I was so excited to find they were actually going to build them. This is my second one. My first one was black.”
“Did you put a bullet hole in it?” asked Lucille.
“A bullet hole?” echoed Jan, wondering if that was some strange Texas custom, for luck or something.
“You know, those decal things. I put just one, in the back passenger door, down in the corner, so hardly anyone can see it. A lot of Cruiser owners do that, for a joke.”
“No, it never occurred to me,” said Jan, relieved to find one difference between her and Lucille. She’d changed her mind: being too much like another person was scary—and, in an odd way, suffocating.
“I think I have another one back home I can send you.”
“No. No, thank you. I’d better get home. I’ve got a lot to do.”
BOBBY Lee watched Jan go down the row to her car and get in behind the steering wheel. “What do you think?” he asked his wife.
Lucille watched Jan start up and drive off. “So far, so good,” she said.
Four
JAN came up to the beautiful carved walnut door of the old house and paused—as she often did—to admire the pattern of leaves and flowers carved into it, before pushing the doorbell. After a minute, she pushed it again. Still no answer, so she got out her copy of the old-fashioned bronze key. The house was big, and Aunt Edyth was slightly deaf, so sometimes she didn’t hear the bell. Aunt Edyth’s housekeeper had a key for the very same reason.
Jan was met at the door by Lizzie, Aunt Edyth’s miniature fox terrier. The little black and white dog shot past her, across the porch and lawn to her favorite shrub, where she squatted with a look that could only be interpreted as relief.
That was odd. Aunt Edyth was always good about letting the dog out. Jan paused in the big entrance hall, waiting for Lizzie to come back. Meanwhile, she cocked her head, inhaling and listening. It was almost nine o’clock—she was here to take Aunt Edyth to church—and she was surprised not to smell coffee. Her aunt was an early riser in any case and enjoyed a cup of coffee first thing “to get her blood stirring,” as she put it. Jan enjoyed sharing that pre-church cup of the rich, dark brew.
But there was no welcoming smell, or even the small clatter of someone in the kitchen preparing it.
And poor Lizzie was still tinkling, an indication that she hadn’t been let out last night, either.
Perhaps Aunt Edyth was ill. Though clear-minded and physically active, her great-aunt was, after all, ninety-seven. Starting to
feel anxious, Jan went slowly up the stairs to the second floor. The windowless corridor was dim and creepy; she flipped on the ceiling lights. There were rooms on either side, their doors all shut, except one—the bathroom. Its open door laid a splash of light across the narrow carpet. At the end of the hall, facing Jan, was another door, also shut. Like all the woodwork in the house, it was made of oak so hard it hurt her knuckles when she rapped on it.
“Aunt Edyth? Are you in there?”
There was no reply. The open bathroom door meant she wasn’t in there; the lack of coffee smell meant she wasn’t in the kitchen; the anxious dog meant she hadn’t gone out. Feeling frightened now, Jan opened the door.
On the tall wooden bed, which stood against the center of the wall, lay a thin figure. She was on her back, the covers draped evenly across her, head turned away, toward the window. Jan could see the white hair, thick and abundant for someone her aunt’s age, pulled into its usual bun, half hidden by her big feather pillow.
“Aunt Edyth?” called Jan, loud enough to penetrate deaf ears. But there was no response; the figure lay perfectly still. Fearing the worst, Jan went around the bed for a look. Aunt Edyth’s features were unnaturally pale and frozen into a look of surprise. Her chin was lifted. Her eyes and mouth were open, as if startled by Jan’s appearance beside her pillow. “It’s just me,” said Jan—then she realized that Aunt Edyth wasn’t looking at her. Or at anything. Jan stretched out her forefinger to touch the wrinkled skin: cold.
“Oh, dear,” said Jan, pulling back her finger hastily. Then, feeling she ought to say something more sympathetic, she managed to murmur, “You poor thing.” Then it hit her: this was Great-aunt Edyth, who had loved her and bullied her and admired her—but would no more. She choked on a sob. As a nurse, she’d dealt with death, but never the death of a loved one. What should she do? From the chill of the body, it seemed clear that this must have happened early last night. Her sympathetic heart wanted to close her great-aunt’s staring eyes, but something else kept her from it. Something that wasn’t quite right. No, that was silly. She gave herself a rough shake. It was because she had begun to believe that Aunt Edyth would never die, that she would always be there, expressing a sharp opinion, telling uproarious stories, loving her dogs, ordering people about. That, and only that, was what was wrong.
Sins and Needles Page 3
