Read Online Moving Can Be Murder by Susan Santangelo - Free Book Online

magazines that are years out of date.
    I finally convinced My Beloved to hire a
dumpster. I was well on my way to filling it, too – and having
myself a great time with my purging – until I accidentally threw
out Jim’s favorite L.L. Bean jacket, which he had carelessly left
on the garage floor. After that debacle, I reined myself in.
Reluctantly.
    We hadn’t made any decision on where we were
moving to, but since Nancy expected the sale of our house to take a
while, neither of us was concerned.
    “Wherever we go, I promise that we’ll take
both dogs with us,” Jim said. What a softie. I knew he loved the
girls as much as I did, especially now that he was retired and able
to spend more “quality” time with them.
    Jenny was a big help in the purging and
packing. Probably because she had moved out of the house and was
starting her own adventure with Mark. I was dying of curiosity
about the progress of that relationship, but I restrained myself
from cross-examining her. Like asking whether there were any
wedding plans.
    Our dear son, however, was not taking our
move out of the family homestead as well. In fact, if e-mails could
ignite a computer, his constant flood of them would have burned our
house down. They basically all had the same tone, but varied in
intensity as we got closer to the open house. Such as:
     
    The Big Move
    Mom, don’t touch my stuff! I’ll come home
and go through it all myself. Just give me a little time to get
things wrapped up in Florida. Do not – I repeat, DO NOT! – under
any circumstances, go into my closet and start to pack things up.
Especially my comic book collection.
    Your anxious son.
     
    His comic book collection? Since when was
that so precious? I remembered that Mike had been into comics when
he was in junior high. He even had a box or two stored away, but
nothing that could possibly stir up this kind of long-distance
panic.
    I decided Mike must have years’ worth of
Playboy magazines stashed under his comics and he didn’t want me to
know that. That made much more sense.
    I had an easy solution. I would delegate
packing up Mike’s room to My Beloved. It would give him a nice
break from re-grouting the master bathroom tile, touching up the
baseboard paint and trim in the kitchen, and helping me wash the
windows until they sparkled. Etc. etc.
    It sure looked easier to prep a house for
sale on Home and Garden Television. Where was the Designed-To-Sell
team when we needed them?

     
    A week before the open house, I moved Lucy
and Ethel, along with their food, bowls, toys, blankets, crates,
and doggy snacks, over to Mary Alice’s house. We hadn’t talked much
since her Bunco party outburst, and this gave me a convenient
excuse to catch up with her. Plus, she loves Lucy and Ethel almost
as much as I do. And truth be told, they love her, too. Not as much
as they love me, of course.
    The dogs were puzzled by their change of
digs, but once Mary Alice helped me unload all their gear, they
settled right in like it was home. I tried to suppress a pang of
jealousy when Lucy, ignoring me completely, nudged Mary Alice’s arm
as hard as she could, demanding attention. Ethel had already curled
up in her crate for a snooze.
    Mary Alice laughed at my reaction. “Don’t
worry, I know I’m just the dog sitter. I won’t steal them from
you.”
    “I didn’t realize I was being that obvious,”
I confessed. “I want them to like being here, but…”
    “But not as much as being with you,” Mary
Alice finished.
    “I’m glad you asked me to take care of the
dogs,” she went on. “I hope it means you forgive me for my behavior
the night of the Bunco party. I don’t know what got into me,
carrying on like that.”
    “Since you brought it up, I have been
worried about you,” I answered. “It’s been so crazy trying to get
the house ready to sell that I haven’t called you for a while. But
are you sure you’re OK? Really?”
    “You’re one of the few people who know