I grabbed the plates and silverware and headed for the kitchen. She followed, prattling on, and thankfully giving me more clues as to what I had agreed to do.
“We can start by visiting Miss Lolly and her sister. They seem to be quite self-sufficient and very capable of taking care of each other in a crisis, but they are getting on in years.”
“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” I snorted. My head had cleared and I was beginning to feel like my old nasty self again. “Miss Lolly is eighty if she’s a day, and her sister is older than that.”
Mother ignored me. “Some nice cream of potato soup and homemade corn muffins would be nice, I think.”
“And just how are we going to accomplish that little culinary miracle without any electricity?”
“You were a Girl Scout, dear. There are ways.”
I grumbled and mumbled as I washed and dried her china and silver. The last thing I wanted to do was play Lady Bountiful to a bunch of Mother’s crotchety little old lady friends. I had too many other things to worry about.
A precious porcelain cup almost slipped out of my hands as my heart lurched and fluttered wildly against my ribs once again. I leaned against the sink and held on for dear life. This time I was frightened out of my wits.
“Cassie’s here, darling!”
I wiped the cold sweat from my brow with the dishtowel, then threw it towards the sink as I hurried to the back door. If I were having a heart attack, I wanted my daughter’s sweet face to be the last thing I saw.
Cassie was standing up on one of the bigger limbs looking around at the storm damage. In spite of the warm weather, she wore her dark hair down. It hung straight and shining past her shoulders. And somehow between final exams she had found the time to get a really terrific tan. Her slim arms and long legs were the color of cinnamon. She looked like a million dollars in khaki Bermuda shorts and a simple white cotton tee shirt.
“Oh, dear,” murmured Mother. “I hope she didn’t travel like that.”
“Mother, please don’t start!”
“But Paisley, someone has to tell her,” she whispered. “You obviously don’t care, but, thank heaven, some of us still have standards.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” I hissed.
“What are you two fighting about?” called Cassie, gaily. “I should think you’d be so happy to be alive after all this you’d cut out that silly crap.”
She jumped off the limb and picked up a dilapidated old backpack that had definitely seen better days. One strap was hanging loose, and the zipper was half open, allowing her clothes, including several pieces of lacy underwear, to peek out unashamedly.
Mother opened her mouth again, but I flew out the back door and down the walk before she could utter another critical remark.
I hugged my beautiful daughter as hard as she would let me. Her hair smelled like fresh flowers and her skin really did have the scent of cinnamon.
“Wow, honey! You look gorgeous,” I said with a happy smile.
“That’s not what Gran thinks? That’s what you all were arguing about, isn’t it?”
She untangled herself from my arms and picked up an even rattier leather bag that was old enough to vote when we escaped from San Romero with her dolls packed inside.
“Never mind,” she sighed when I didn’t answer. “I know. And honestly, I’ll try to be patient with her this summer; but you gotta understand, in some circles I am considered quite a terrific looking broad.”
“Darling, she thinks so, too. It’s just that she believes you should dress more conservatively when you travel. And she doesn’t like old, well,…old beat-up things. Didn’t she send you some new luggage?”
A look of distaste distorted Cassie’s perfect features for a moment.
“Yuck! Burgundy tapestry with big, ugly, green leaves! I sent it right back to Macy’s and told them to credit her account.”
“Cassie, that’s rude!”
“Don’t you start, Mom! And it’s no more rude than having the impertinence to pick out something as personal as luggage and force it on me under the guise of a gift.”
I smiled. At least I was familiar with the way this wind blew. Cassie and her grandmother had been fighting the same old battle since she was old enough to talk.
Cassie had to park the rental car down on the road because of the fallen tree across the driveway. I helped her unload her things and carry them up the hill without giving any thought to the effort it took. It wasn’t until we had finished and were sprawled out on the back porch enjoying some iced tea that I remembered I was supposedly having a heart attack. I was hot and sweaty, but the old ticker was beating with a calm regularity beneath my breast.
“You’re really good for what ails me, sweetie,” I grinned.
Cassie looked at me with quick concern.
“What’s wrong, Mom? You’re not sick are you?”
I knew better than to alarm her. It had taken quite a few therapy sessions before she had overcome the abrupt way she had lost her father. I was sure that fear was still there, not far beneath the surface.
“No, of course not, darling. Slightly shaken, only. The tornado threw me a bit, that’s all. We were really lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Absolutely! And that’s what scared you half to death. You realized how random the world is—that really bad things can happen without any rhyme or reason—and you have no control whatsoever.”
I sat up closer to the edge of my chair and leaned towards her.
“Then why didn’t Gran react the way I did? Why isn’t she having aftershocks like me?”
“Are you kidding,” laughed my daughter. “Gran would never admit that she doesn’t have absolute control over everything all the time. I’m sure she thinks she either prayed or willed away the storm and saved the day.”
I lay back in the chaise and took a long sip of tea. What Cassie said made sense. In San Romero we had been in great physical danger, but there was something we could do to save ourselves. I had been too busy saving our hides to worry about anything.
“I was scared, too,” admitted Cassie in a quiet little girl’s voice. “I heard about it on the radio this morning. When they said six people were killed…”
I hopped up immediately and hugged my child. My fears were silly next to the memory of her childhood terror.
Chapter Six
It didn’t occur to Cassie that Aggie was in absentia until that night before we went to bed.
“When can we pick puppy up from the kennel?”
“Uh, we need to talk about that, pumpkin, but let’s wait until
