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Authors: Midnight Hour
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over her shoulder. The clothes kept slipping down her arm, impeding her progress as she leaned more and more to the left to keep them from sliding to the ground.
“Hi, Aunt Grace!” A piping voice greeted her as she dropped grocery bags, purse, and briefcase on the white-painted oval table at which she and Jessica ate most of their meals. Straightening up with relief, she hung the cleaning on the antique iron coatrack that stood against the wall Just inside the door.
“Hi, Courtney.” Rofling her shoulders to ease the cramping caused by carrying all that weight in such an awkward position, Grace greeted her niece with a smile as she darted past, a ponytailed four-year-old in
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a pink sweat suit. Then she glanced the length of the long, narrow, charmingly oldfashioned kitchen to discover her sister perched on one of the center island bar stools talking to Pat Marcel, the woman who came in once a week to clean. “Hi, Jax. Hi, Pat.”
” ‘Bout time you got home,” Jackie said with a smile, breaking off her conversation with Pat, who usually left at four and was thus owed two extra hours’ pay. Today Grace had asked Pat to stay until she got home so that Jessica would not be alone in the house. By the time they’d left the hospital that morning, Jess had already been much better, revived by the correct dosage of insulin. But she had stayed home from school under strict orders to sleep.
“Hi, Aunt Grace!” Paul, her sixyear-old nephewtafl, thin, sandy-haired, and freckle-faced–skidded past, sliding like an ice skater in his stocking feet on the hardwood floor. He had a hole in the knee of his jeans and a big grin showing off a space where one of his front teeth had been just a few days before.
“Hi, Paul. He lost a tooth,” Grace said unnecessarily to her sister. Having retrieved the groceries and her purse, she heaved them onto the island counter, which like all the others in the kitchen was of white cerarnic tile. For a moment she abandoned the groceries to Pat’s capable hands while she extracted her checkbook and a pen from her purse.
“This morning. It fell out just as we were getting ready to leave the house. You’ve never heard such a commotion in your life. It bled,” Jackie said significantly, reaching into a sack for a white bakery box that revealed half a dozen blueberry muffins through a clear
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KAREN ROBARDS
cellophane window. She put the box on the counter, opened it, and helped herself to a muffin. “He’s all excited now, though, because the tooth fairy’s coming tonight. I hear you had some excitement of your own last night, by the way. Jessica’s diabetes act up again?”
Busy writing out Pat’s check, Grace nodded. The full story of what had happened was not for Pat’s ears. Grace wasn’t even sure she would tell her sister. Her first impulse was to keep the embarrassing, terrifying truth strictly between herself and Jessica.
“How is Jess, by the way?” Grace asked Pat as she folded the check and handed it to her. Having just Put away the milk and butter, Pat stood in front of the built-in refrigerator, which had been fitted with wood panels to match the cherry cabinets that lined the walls. One of the kitchen’s four vintage brass-and-glass lanterns, fitted retroactively for electricity, hung over her head, bathing her in a pool of light.
“She’s been real quiet all day, but I think she’s doing okay. A friend’s upstairs with her now. She brought Jessica’s hornework over, so I thought it would be all right if she went up.” In her mid-fifties, with short dark hair gone to gray, Pat had deep wrinkles between her brows and around her mouth that made her look perpetually worried. When she had first come to work for them, Grace had braced herself every time she had talked to Pat, waiting for the bad news that seemed imminent. It had never come, and Grace had finally realized that the worried frown was the woman’s habitaal
“Hi, Aunt Grace!” A piping voice greeted her as she dropped grocery bags, purse, and briefcase on the white-painted oval table at which she and Jessica ate most of their meals. Straightening up with relief, she hung the cleaning on the antique iron coatrack that stood against the wall Just inside the door.
“Hi, Courtney.” Rofling her shoulders to ease the cramping caused by carrying all that weight in such an awkward position, Grace greeted her niece with a smile as she darted past, a ponytailed four-year-old in
THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
69
a pink sweat suit. Then she glanced the length of the long, narrow, charmingly oldfashioned kitchen to discover her sister perched on one of the center island bar stools talking to Pat Marcel, the woman who came in once a week to clean. “Hi, Jax. Hi, Pat.”
” ‘Bout time you got home,” Jackie said with a smile, breaking off her conversation with Pat, who usually left at four and was thus owed two extra hours’ pay. Today Grace had asked Pat to stay until she got home so that Jessica would not be alone in the house. By the time they’d left the hospital that morning, Jess had already been much better, revived by the correct dosage of insulin. But she had stayed home from school under strict orders to sleep.
“Hi, Aunt Grace!” Paul, her sixyear-old nephewtafl, thin, sandy-haired, and freckle-faced–skidded past, sliding like an ice skater in his stocking feet on the hardwood floor. He had a hole in the knee of his jeans and a big grin showing off a space where one of his front teeth had been just a few days before.
“Hi, Paul. He lost a tooth,” Grace said unnecessarily to her sister. Having retrieved the groceries and her purse, she heaved them onto the island counter, which like all the others in the kitchen was of white cerarnic tile. For a moment she abandoned the groceries to Pat’s capable hands while she extracted her checkbook and a pen from her purse.
“This morning. It fell out just as we were getting ready to leave the house. You’ve never heard such a commotion in your life. It bled,” Jackie said significantly, reaching into a sack for a white bakery box that revealed half a dozen blueberry muffins through a clear
70
KAREN ROBARDS
cellophane window. She put the box on the counter, opened it, and helped herself to a muffin. “He’s all excited now, though, because the tooth fairy’s coming tonight. I hear you had some excitement of your own last night, by the way. Jessica’s diabetes act up again?”
Busy writing out Pat’s check, Grace nodded. The full story of what had happened was not for Pat’s ears. Grace wasn’t even sure she would tell her sister. Her first impulse was to keep the embarrassing, terrifying truth strictly between herself and Jessica.
“How is Jess, by the way?” Grace asked Pat as she folded the check and handed it to her. Having just Put away the milk and butter, Pat stood in front of the built-in refrigerator, which had been fitted with wood panels to match the cherry cabinets that lined the walls. One of the kitchen’s four vintage brass-and-glass lanterns, fitted retroactively for electricity, hung over her head, bathing her in a pool of light.
“She’s been real quiet all day, but I think she’s doing okay. A friend’s upstairs with her now. She brought Jessica’s hornework over, so I thought it would be all right if she went up.” In her mid-fifties, with short dark hair gone to gray, Pat had deep wrinkles between her brows and around her mouth that made her look perpetually worried. When she had first come to work for them, Grace had braced herself every time she had talked to Pat, waiting for the bad news that seemed imminent. It had never come, and Grace had finally realized that the worried frown was the woman’s habitaal
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