In the Blink of an Eye (13 page)

“For lunch?” he echoes, not sure whether to smile or frown. “No, I didn't, Dulc. We have a lot to do today.”

“I want Julia to come over.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he says vaguely. “She's busy.”

Dulcie sits heavily in the chair and scowls. “Doing what?”

Taking hard-earned cash from people who believe she can talk to their dead relatives.

He skirts the question, picking up the phone and dialing his voice mail number. “We're busy too, Dulcie. We have to run some errands . . .”

He frowns. No new messages. Well, what was he expecting? He didn't really expect a call-back from the latest round of auditions.

“What kind of errands, Daddy?”

He hangs up the phone. “We're going to buy some stuff for the house, and we're going to pick up some new clothes for you.”

“I want Julia to come shopping with us.”

“Not today. Knock, knock,” Paine says to distract her.

“Who's there?” she asks halfheartedly, and adds, “I hope it's Julia.”

Rolling his eyes, Paine says, “Oswald.”

“Oswald who?

“Oswald my gum.”

Dulcie frowns. “I don't get it.”

“Oswald—sounds like I swallowed. I swallowed my gum,” he explains patiently.

“Is Oswald a name?”

“Never mind, Dulc.” He pours cereal into a pair of chipped Fiestaware bowls, splashes in some milk, and sets the bright yellow bowl in front of her. “There you go. There are lots of marshmallows in there, so dig in.”

She picks up her spoon. “Are you sure I was asleep when you tucked me in last night, Daddy?”

“Sound asleep.” He plucks a small yellow moon from the blue bowl as he carries it to the table.

“Oh.”

Paine picks up his spoon, and notices that Dulcie's is still poised over her bowl.

“What's wrong, Dulc?”

“Did you sit on my bed when you tucked me in?”

“No, I sat on your bed when you were falling asleep.” He looks up at her. Familiar guilt seeps in as he notices traces of last night's milk mustache still hovering above her lip.

He was so caught up in the search for her missing book that he forgot to help her wash her face and brush her teeth upstairs. And he'll have to remember to comb her tousled hair and pull it back into a ponytail later, before they leave. Margaret always does those things for her. He realizes with a pang that he isn't a very good replacement for Dulcie's beloved baby-sitter. Nor for her mother.

Kristin might not have been the most maternal woman he'd ever known, but she was great at mother-daughter things like hair combing and clothes shopping. She was always brushing and braiding Dulcie's long hair, and dressing her up in pretty clothes. She even used to paint Dulcie's little fingernails when she did her own.

“Did Julia come up to my room before she left?” Dulcie asks.

Christ. Julia
again.

It doesn't take a child psychologist to figure out that Dulcie has latched on to Julia as a female role model in Margaret's absence. Paine sighs. This is going to go on all day if he doesn't put a stop to it.

“No, Dulcie, Julia didn't come into your room before she left, and she can't—”

“Are you sure?” Dulcie interrupts.

“Trust me, I'm sure.” He personally watched Julia leave after a curt good-bye and her repeated assurance that she'd be fine walking the few short blocks to her house alone. He tried not to worry about her, but found himself filled with doubt as she splashed out the door and down the street without an umbrella to protect her from the downpour.

“Because I thought she was sitting on my bed.”

“She wasn't.”

“Are you
sure?”
Dulcie asks again.

Paine's initial frustration with her persistence gives way to apprehension when he catches the worried look on Dulcie's face. A chill creeps over him.

“Why do you keep asking, Dulcie?”

“I thought somebody was there. Sitting on my bed.”

“I told you, I was—”

“It was later. You weren't there. I woke up, and I thought . . .”

“Maybe you were dreaming,” he suggests, when she trails off.

“No. I was dreaming
before
it happened, and I dreamed again
after,
but that part wasn't a dream. Somebody was there.”

“Like when you thought Gram came to you that night . . . the night she died?” Paine asks, fighting to keep a tremor from his voice.

“Kind of like that,” Dulcie says matter-of-factly. “Except, this wasn't Gram. It was someone else.”

“You thought it might be me? Or Julia?”

“I thought so. But just because you were the only other ones in the house with me.” Dulcie shakes her head. “Maybe it was somebody else. I don't know who.”

“Don't be afraid, Dulcie. It was probably just a dream.”

“It wasn't a dream, and I'm not afraid,” she says matter-of-factly, spooning some cereal into her mouth.

No. She
isn't
afraid,
Paine thinks, watching her.

But I am.

I
T ISN'T EASY,
getting Nan from her bed to the car. Rupert can't help but acknowledge that a wheelchair and a ramp would be an enormous help. Finally, he settles his wife in the passenger's seat and tucks a fleece blanket around her thin, shivering frame.

A wheelchair . . .

A ramp . . .

But how many more times will Nan leave the house?

She wanted him to cancel the appointment with the oncologist this morning. He would have gladly agreed, if it weren't for her breathing. It's becoming increasingly hard for her to take air into her lungs. On her last visit, Dr. Klauber suggested getting an oxygen tank set up for her at home. She refused. Now, Rupert suspects, it has become a necessity.

The doctor also pulled Rupert aside and suggested—not for the first time—that he look into getting hospice care for Nan at home. But that's out of the question. Rupert doesn't want anyone taking care of his wife but him. He's been doing it since he met Nan when she was only fifteen, and he'll do it until . . .

Till death do us part.

“Are you okay?” Rupert asks, flashing an artificial smile and giving the blanket a final tuck beneath her fragile knee.

She merely nods, looking too exhausted to speak.

He goes back to lock the door, wishing fervently that this were the house on Summer Street. It isn't helping either of them, going through this traumatic experience in a place that doesn't feel like home. Not the way the old house did, right from the start.

He thinks back over the years, picturing Nan there, young and healthy, baking in the big old-fashioned kitchen, puttering in her garden—and Katherine, underfoot, or sailing on the swing he rigged for her in one of the big old trees in the yard . . .

“Rupert?”

“Yes?” He turns to see Nan in the car, with the door still open as he left it.

“I'm so chilly. Can you please hurry?”

“I'm sorry.” He fits his key into the lock, gives it a twist, and dashes back across the patch of gravel drive. After planting a gentle kiss on her turban-covered head, he closes her door before going around to the driver's side.

Rupert drives slowly through the Lily Dale streets, mindful of the increased pedestrian traffic that indicates the season's imminent commencement. The rain has stopped at last, and the clouds have scattered just enough to reveal a sliver of sun. The rays filter almost eerily through the lingering mist, glistening on the water droplets that still cling to leafy branches overhead.

He hesitates before turning down Summer Street, one of the many possible routes leading to the main gate. This isn't the quickest way, and they have a fifteen-minute drive to the doctor's office in Dunkirk.

But maybe Iris's granddaughter and her father have arrived. He forgot to ask Pilar about it last night in his haste to get her out the door.

Sure enough, when the house comes into view, an unfamiliar car with California plates sits at the curb in front.

They're here.

He sighs in relief, glancing at Nan. She, too, is looking at the house.

Rupert follows her gaze. The only sign that the place is occupied is that the windows facing the street are raised to let the fresh air in.

Fool. Doesn't he realize those screens are full of holes?

Eccentric Iris never minded an occasional fly buzzing around, but any sane human being would repair them before opening the windows at this time of year.

“It's so beautiful,” Nan says softly.

He turns to see her wincing as she turns her head to keep the house in view as they drive slowly by.

Beautiful?

That, it isn't. Iris let the place go all to hell in the three years since they moved out. But Rupert will have it whipped into shape in a few days. He's already making plans: he'll cut and fertilize the grass, and repaint the trim, and fill the window boxes with blooming annuals . . .

Nan makes a slight sound, a cross between a sigh and a moan, turning her head again toward her own window as they round the corner.

He doesn't need to see her face to know that the merest movement contorts her features in pain, or that she's wearing a wistful expression, thinking about the old house.

As soon as they get back from Dr. Klauber's office, he'll settle Nan at home. Then he'll waste no time getting back over to Ten Summer Street to talk to the young man from California. Of course he'll be relieved to have an interested buyer knocking at his door. It will save him the trouble of finding a Realtor, listing the house, showing it. And then there's the fact that he is restricted by the Lily Dale Assembly from selling the home to anyone who isn't a member of the Assembly.

Rupert is.

And he's prepared to write Paine Landry a check today, even if it means using every last penny of his retirement investments. All that matters is that he bring Nan home before it's too late.

“
H
ELLO,
M
YRA?”
P
ILAR
clamps the phone to her ear with her shoulder and carries her empty coffee cup and cereal bowl to the white porcelain sink. “It's Pilar. How are you?”

“Pilar! Welcome back. I heard you brought chocolate pastries to Iris's little blind granddaughter. That was so sweet of you.”

News travels quickly in Lily Dale, particularly when Myra is on the sending or receiving end. Since buying a summer cottage in Lily Dale a good twenty years ago, she hasn't missed much that's happened here within the gates. She isn't a medium, nor is her husband, Ted, but between the two of them, they have a hand in just about everything that happens in the community.

“Yes, I stopped over there to say hello yesterday,” Pilar says briefly. “After all, I'm right next door.”

“I can't believe I haven't run into you since you've been back. How was your winter in Alabama?”

“Milder than my winters were in Cedar Bend, that's for sure. How have you been?”

“I can't complain, although I think this was the first and last winter we're going to spend here in Lily Dale. We stayed thinking we'd take up skiing, but we didn't go once. Next year, I think we'll head to Florida again,” Myra says. “Ted and I had a nasty bout with the flu that lasted for weeks. But we've generally been healthy lately, thank God.”

It's the perfect segue. Pilar seizes it “Speaking of health, I was over at Nan's last night. She isn't doing well. I'm so worried.”

“So am I. The poor thing. She's fading fast.”

“It broke my heart, seeing her that way.”

“I don't know how Rupert does it day in, day out. He wants to care for her himself, but Ted and I were just saying the other night that she should be in a hospital in her condition. Rupert won't hear of it.”

“Maybe their daughter should get involved,” Pilar suggests, rinsing the cup and bowl and reaching for the Palmolive.

“Katherine? Yes, she probably should. I suppose Rupert keeps her informed.”

“When was the last time she visited?” Pilar squirts some of the thick green liquid onto a sponge. Too much. Suds quickly explode in the sink beneath the running water.

“Let's see . . . over the Easter holiday. She was here when Ted and I were on our golf trip in South Carolina. And I heard she was here for Christmas, too—that was when we had the flu. We've both made up our minds to get flu shots next year.”

Pilar artfully steers the conversation back on track, attempting to rinse the soap suds down the drain. The white fluff only seems to multiply, filling the sink with bubbly clouds. “I wonder if Katherine plans to come back soon. I'd love to talk to her about getting hospice care. Rupert and Nan don't have to go through this alone, but I can't seem to get that across to him.”

“Oh, Pilar, you know that Rupert can be a stubborn old S.O.B.,” Myra says.

“Well, I've been in his shoes,” Pilar tells her, swallowing hard and looking out the window above the sink. Framed with cheerful blue gingham curtains, it faces her small, tidy yard with its vibrant raised flower beds Raul built and helped her to plant with perennials many summers ago. The colorful petals glisten with raindrops.

Raindrops.

Teardrops.

Pilar lifts her shoulder, wiping her suddenly brimming eyes across the top of her cap sleeve.

“I know you've been there, Pilar.” Myra is sympathetic. “You understand what he's going through more than anybody.”

“It's hard to think clearly when your world is falling apart around you. You resent anybody who tells you what you don't want to hear. But somebody has to.”

“I know.”

“I'm worried about Rupert. And about Nan. And about their daughter. She should be here. I wonder if Rupert has even told her what's going on. Something tells me that he's afraid to admit it to anyone.”