* *
ANNIE HURRIED TO the kitchen, grabbed the carton of remaining egg salad and slammed it into the trash. She paced, or rather hid behind the kitchen door, periodically peeking out the porthole to see if William had ventured back out among the living. As each minute ticked by, her own stomach clenched tighter as if in a vise.
“Is everything okay, dear?”
Annie jumped at Joyce’s warm voice, homey and inviting like a crackling fire. Immediately, a pang of guilt slammed her. Joyce was her dearest friend, and she might have killed her only son. As much as she wanted to throw herself at Joyce’s feet and offer a dramatic confession, she decided it might be best not to mention what she’d done until all the facts shook themselves out in their own good time.
“William’s sick,” she blurted.
“Sick?” Joyce said, her face contorting into a mass of wrinkles in the blink of an eye.
“He’s been in the bathroom for a while now.”
Joyce scurried off as Annie found Miles staring at her.
“What?” she said, popping her hands to her hips like a hen rearing to peck.
“Annie Curtis,” Miles reprimanded her. “Do I even want to know why?”
“I’ll take the blame, Miles, so I’ll stop you right there,” Annie replied, sneaking a peek out the porthole window again.
“Joyce could lose her license.”
“Nah, he won’t call the health inspector on his own mother.”
“What about on you?”
Annie scrunched her face. “Don’t you have something to fry back there?” She furiously slammed the top of his order bell several times and shooed him back to the kitchen. “Order up, order up, order up, Miles.”
He shook his head. “Call me before you tell Joyce you poisoned her baby. I sure don’t want to miss that.”
Annie returned to the porthole window and heaved a sigh of relief when William finally emerged, though staggering and green.
She ventured out to the dining room. “Are you okay?” she asked him softly. William turned and glared at her, making her recoil slightly.
“Annie, what exactly did you mean before when you said you were sorry?”
Annie paused, grazing a finger over her lips as she scrambled for an explanation. She had yelled the words like a reflex, without thinking, without predicting the consequences. But now, as William’s eyes narrowed, she knew they were a tragic mistake.
She winced. “Hmm?”
A deep growl vibrated behind his lips. “That’s what I thought.”
“I pulled the car around to the front, dear,” Joyce said, hurrying over to them. “I can take you straight to the emergency room.”
William put a hand over his stomach. “Take me back to the house.”
“But you got sick so suddenly and so violently. They should check you over to find out what’s wrong. You’re dehydrated at the very least.”
William shot Annie a scowl. “I know what happened.”
Annie’s eyes pleaded with William to not give her away. She couldn’t bear to imagine the look of disappointment and hurt in Joyce’s eyes when she learned what Annie had done. It would be too awful.
“Was it something you ate here?” Joyce asked, turning to Annie to help supply the answer. As Annie clasped her hands in a prayer and was about to explain, William shook his head.
“You can’t trust sushi from a gas station, Mom.”
Annie’s mouth dropped open as Joyce took her son’s arm and patted it.
“Golly, no. It had probably been sitting out for days, William.”
William allowed his mother to squeeze him in a long hug, but his body was rigid, eyes boring holes into Annie. Several moments passed before he finally responded. “Something like that.”
“I’ll bet you won’t do that again,” Annie said, cringing, knowing full well she was pressing her luck. William huffed at her as Joyce led him to the door.
Perhaps their long-awaited reunion hadn’t gone completely as Annie would have predicted, but she took satisfaction in William Kauffman knowing where she stood.
ANNIE POKED HER head into her children’s shared bedroom as Marjorie, her neighbor, helped them fumble into pajamas.
A nurturing widow in her sixties, Marjorie had proved to be a reliable confidante and babysitter in recent years. While Annie was prone to overreaction, nothing ever seemed to rile serene Marjorie. Her auburn hair had peppered to white over the years, and her face, a road map of heavy wrinkles and lines, was radiant because of the loving expressions it constantly displayed. A transplant from Tennessee, she carried a Southern hospitality and charm. Between Joyce and Marjorie, Annie was certain her own mother was in heaven, sending surrogates to stand by her side.
“Are you okay, honey?” Marjorie asked in her sweet, charming lilt.
Annie managed a negligent shrug, the day hanging heavy around her neck as she leaned against the doorway.
Marjorie kissed her tenderly on the cheek. “We’ll have a cup of tea on it another time. They’ve been watching the clock, waiting for you. I’ll let myself out.”
Annie climbed onto her daughter’s bed and sighed with satisfaction. Despite all her failures over the course of her adult life, the two little people tumbling over themselves to embrace her were certainly not included in the list. They were the only reason that the last few years had been tolerable.
Betsy was an outspoken eight-year-old with a round, expressive face and big brown eyes like hers. She had a goofy expression to match any occasion and had certainly gotten herself into trouble by an inappropriately timed raised eyebrow. James, on the other hand, was as fair and gentle as a light summer rain. With storm-gray eyes and moppy brown hair, he moved delicately through the world, examining it from his owl perch before cautiously dipping in a toe and joining the action.
While they didn’t share a father, the two were thick as thieves, and Annie, who had no siblings of her own, took solace in the fact that what she couldn’t give them in extended family, she had made up for by giving them each other.
James, following Betsy’s flailing pantomime directions, selected a Rapunzel storybook from the cupboard and sandwiched himself between Annie and Betsy on his bed.
“Wasn’t it your turn to pick?” Annie asked as James snuggled into her side. He shrugged as Betsy yanked the book from his hands and flipped open the cover.
“I love this book so much,” Betsy said, shuddering with excitement.
