Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg
"
I mean, since his death.
"
Aunt Mary looked up.
"
In my dreams? Do I dream about him?
"
she asked her niece.
"
No,
"
said Helen carefully.
"
This would be more like—
"
She cleared her throat.
"
—when you were awake.
"
Her aunt kept rearranging the breast meat; slowly, deliberately, uselessly. There was no way it was going to fit on the small piece of foil.
"
No,
Lena
,
"
she said mournfully.
"
I wish I did.
"
She had a thought.
"
Why? Do you see Hank?
"
"
No. Not Hank.
"
"
Someone else, then?
"
"
Yes.
"
"
Do you know who?
"
It was an amazing conversation—
at least to Helen; God only knew what her aunt and friends talked about at the senior center.
Probably this kind of thing comes up often,
she told herself. Maybe it wasn
'
t so weird, after all. She took a deep breath and plunged ahead.
"
You remember I told you Mrs. Byrne—Katie
'
s mother—died suddenly? Well, I think I saw her at the mansion today. Her
...
her ghost, I mean,
"
Helen said, wincing at the word.
Her aunt looked up.
"
Oh, dear,
"
she said, sad and distressed.
"
Where?
"
"
In the bathroom.
"
"
Is that where she died?
"
"
No. I have the impression he—they—found her in her bed.
"
"
Oh. Then it was probably some other ghost you saw.
"
"Wha—"
A sliver of dry meat caught in Helen
'
s throat. She coughed and ran for a glass of water, then drank it in one breath and, after she settled down, resumed her surreal exchange with her aunt.
"
Is this
, you know,
something that happens to people as they get older?
"
she asked, folding two scraps of foil to make a larger piece.
"
They develop an ability to see and hear strange
...
things?
"
"
Ghosts, you mean?
"
Helen winced again at the word and nodded.
"
Good heavens, no,
"
said Aunt Mary.
"
I don
'
t know anyone who
'
s ever seen a ghost. Except now you.
"
With a preoccupied frown she began piling another load of meat on another piece of foil, with no more hope of making it fit than the first unwrapped pile.
Suddenly she looked up and said,
"
Did you bring any gravy for this, dear?
"
"
Gravy?
Oh—I
'
ll go get some.
"
Helen didn
'
t know which she found more unnerving: the talk of ghosts, or the talk of gravy. Immeasurably distressed at her aunt
'
s growing ineptitude, she said gently,
"
I have some much bigger scraps of foil, Aunt Mary. I never remember to use them. I
'
ll bring those, too.
"
Her aunt
'
s tired, lined face went as bright as the morning sun at the prospect of free foil.
"
That
'
s the trouble with you young people nowadays: waste, waste, waste,
"
she said in a good-natured scold.
"
You don
'
t remember the Depression.
"
But you do,
Helen thought, kissing her aunt
'
s cheek on her way out of the kitchen.
Even if that
'
s all you remember.
"
Be right back,
"
she said, cheerful as a robin.
She dashed across the hail to crumple some new foil, then fold it flat again. Uppermost in her mind was the thought that the woman who raised her, the woman who loved to cook even more than she loved to garden—that dear, dear woman, one of the loves of Helen
'
s life, had just lost her ability to wrap up leftovers.
At
the end of the school day Helen left The Open Door and took herself off to the Salem Athenaeum, where she spent an hour poring over a handbook of prescription drugs. She was looking for an answer to a very simple question:
If ergotamine was so good, why did she think it was so bad?
With a medical dictionary at her elbow, she waded through pages of mumbo-jumbo and came up with a couple of interesting facts. One: a migraine could be bad enough to cause nausea and vomiting. Two: ergotamine itself, sometimes used to relieve migraines, could cause nausea and vomiting.
So much for modern medicine. At least it explained why Helen reacted so strongly whenever she heard or saw the word
ergotamine.
Somewhere in her past, she must have known someone who
'
d suffered side effects from it. Yes. It explained a lot. She felt an enormous surge of relief.
She was about to close the handbook and hurry home to make dinner for Becky and Russell when her eye fell on the word
oxytocic
at the end of the description of ergotamine.
That word, she knew.
****
"
It
'
s a drug that induces labor,
"
she explained to Becky after supper as the two were clearing away the dishes.
"
Sometimes doctors have to rely on oxytocic drugs like ergotamine in difficult deliveries.
"
Helen wasn
'
t sure whether her daughter really needed to know that, but she was aching to tell someone about her discoveries. And in any case, she wanted Becky to feel comfortable talking with her about sex and babies. Nowadays, that was more important than ever.
Becky understood the problem instantly.
"
But why would Linda Byrne take ergotamine when she was pregnant? Wouldn
'
t that be dangerous?
"
"
Definitely. Headache or no headache, any physician would
'
ve warned her not to use it,
"
Helen said.
"
She could easily have had a miscarriage.
"
Now Becky was caught up in the mystery. She lifted their chronically hungry cat from the counter and draped the slinky black creature across her shoulder, then stroked her fur thoughtfully. Helen could hear Moby
'
s purr from across the room.
"
Hey. Wait a minute,
"
Becky said, startled by her own powers of logic.
"
Like, who says she even took the drug? You said the date on the bottle was nine months ago. She wouldn
'
t have been pregnant then!
"
Helen went into the butler
'
s pantry, now a laundry room, and began transferring wet laundry from the washer into the dryer.
"
You
'
ve never had a migraine,
"
she called out to her daughter.
"
You don
'
t know how desperate
...
how irrational you can become.
"
"
Yes, I do,
"
Becky retorted.
"I'
ve seen you with one.
"
Helen set the dryer controls, then came back out to the kitchen to fill the kettle.
"
Are you having tea?
"
she asked her daughter, though she had little hope that her daughter
'd
be able to linger.
Becky shook her head.
"
Library.
"
Still, she seemed reluctant to dash out, maybe because she
'
d developed an emotional stake in the Byrne family. She was in love with the father, amused by the daughter and—now, too late— intrigued by the mother.
She took a seat and draped the cat across her lap, puzzling it through.
"
Wait! If Mrs. Byrne did take ergotamine, she must
'
ve lucked out because we know she was still pregnant when she died,
"
she said triumphantly.
Helen shook her head.
"
I don
'
t think she took the drug. I
'
m sure she didn
'
t.
"
"
But, Mom! You just said—
"
"
She was too smart, too well-informed. Too devoted.
"
As a mother, if not as a wife,
Helen added to herself.
"
What I need to do is prove it,
"
she threw in indiscreetly.
That set Becky off big time.
"
Why? What difference does it make now? She
'
s dead. It
'
s irrelevant!
"
she said, confused and irritated by her mother
'
s twists and turns.
Poor Becky. She was being so adult, so logical.
Whereas her mother,
Helen thought wryly,
was being an emotional, irrational pain in the butt.
Talk about your role reversals.
Helen
'
s smile was
fil
led with lame reassurance.
"
When you
'
re older, you
'
ll understand.
"
"
Oh, please,
"
said Becky, rolling her eyes at the tired cop-out. She stood up, spilling the cat out of her lap.
"
I
'
m outta here,
"
she said as she headed for the door.
"
To do some research for a term paper that
'
ll actually make sense.
"
She slammed the door in annoyance, leaving her mother alone with her theories, and her worries, and her vision of fear.
* * *
Katie Byrne, dancing with excitement over her first play date, hid behind her nanny
'
s skirt as Peaches swung open the front door to welcome their visitors.
A young couple with lots of money and nothing much to do except watch it grow had moved in three doors away. They had a bright and noisy daughter called Amy who was just two months older than Katie and, long before Katie, had been signed up for summer session at The Open Door. But preschool was still two weeks away. In the meantime, Amy
'
s mother suggested that they nudge the friendship along with a couple of play dates.
The idea, Peaches felt, had possibilities.
Little Amy Bonham was not shy. As soon as the door was opened, the brown-eyed moppet came marching in, did an end run around Peaches, and said to Katie,
"
Do you have toys?
"
"
Uh-huh,
"
said Katie. She began rattling off a list of her current favorites, from Jumpin
'
Jimmy to Sally
'
s Log Cabin.
Together the little girls made a beeline for the nursery. Amy
'
s mother, thrilled to leave her only child in the care of a genuine
London
nanny, stayed two minutes and then took off to go shopping.
Peaches would have the girls for the next three hours. She let them get used to one another, while she waited for her opportunity. At the end of the second hour, when it became apparent that the girls were getting a bit tired, she made her move.