Рита Браун: Claws And Effect

"I'll throw on another log if you make hot chocolate. You do a better job than I do."

"Only because you haven't the patience to warm the milk, Harry. You just pour hot water on the cocoa. Milk always makes it taste better even if you use one of those confections with powdered milk in it."

"I like chocolate." Pewter lifted her head.

"She heard the word 'milk.'" Harry stirred the fire, then placed a split dry log over the rekindled flames. Once that caught she laid another log parallel to that, then placed two on top in the opposite direction.

"I'd like some milk." Mrs. Murphy placed herself squarely on the kitchen table.

"Murph, off." Harry advanced on the beautiful cat, who hopped down onto a chair, her head peering over the top of the table.

"Here." Susan poured milk into a large bowl for the two cats, then reached into the stoneware cookie jar to give Tucker Milk-Bones. As Susan had bred Tee Tucker, she loved the dog. She'd kept one from the litter and thought someday she'd breed again.

"Did I tell you what Sam Mahanes said today? It was about the only interesting thing that happened."

"I threw out junk mail along with the Cracker Jacks in my postbox. That was the big interest in my day," Susan replied.

"I didn't do it."

"Then why didn't you clean it out? You're supposed to run a tight ship at the post office."

"Because whoever put the Cracker Jacks in there wanted you to have them." Harry smiled.

"That reduces the culprits to my esteemed husband, Ned. Not the Cracker Jacks type. Danny, m-m-m, more like his father. Must have been Brooks." She cited her teenaged daughter.

"I'll never tell."

"You won't have to because when I get home she'll wait for me to say something. When I don't she'll say, 'Mom, any mail today?' The longer I keep quiet, the crazier it will make her." Susan laughed. She loved her children and they were maddening as only adolescents can be but they were good people.

"The hard part was keeping Mrs. Murphy and Pewter from playing with the Cracker Jacks."

"What was your solution?"

Mrs. Murphy lifted her head from the milk bowl. "Catnip in the Reverend Jones' box."

Both women laughed as the cat spoke.

"She's got opinions," Susan remarked.

"I put catnip in Herb's mailbox." Harry giggled. "When he gets home and puts his mail on the table his two cats will shred it."

"Remember the time Cazenovia ate the communion wafers?" Susan howled recalling the time when Herb's sauciest cat got into the church closet, which was unwisely left open. "And I hear his younger kitty, Elocution, is learning from Cazenovia. Imagine kneeling at the communion rail being handed a wafer with fang marks in it."

Harry giggled. "The best church service I ever attended. But I hand it to Herb, he tore up bread crusts and communion continued."

"What happened with Sam Mahanes?" Susan asked. "Didn't mean to get off the track. I do it all the time and I'm not even old. Can you imagine me at eighty?"

"I can. You'll be the kind of old dear who walks in other people's kitchens to make herself a cup of tea."

"Well-at least I won't be boring. Eccentricity is worth something. You were going to tell me about Sam Mahanes in the post office today."

"Oh, that. Miranda told him that Bruce Buxton took a header on the ice. He turned a nifty shade of beet red and said, 'Too bad he didn't break his neck,' and then he slammed out of the P.O."

"Huh." Susan cupped her chin in her hand as she stirred her hot chocolate. "I thought those two were as thick as thieves."

"Yeah, although I don't know how anyone can stand Bruce on a long-term basis."

Susan shrugged. "I guess in order to be a good surgeon you need a big ego."

"Need one to be postmistress, too."

"You know, in order to be good at anything I suppose everyone needs a touch of ego. The trick is hiding it. Bruce might be wonderful at what he does but he's stupid about people. That's one of the things I've always admired about Fair. He's great at what he does but he never brags." She sipped a moment. "And how is your ex-husband?"

"Fine. It's breeding season so I won't see much of him until mares are bred for next year and this year's mares deliver." Fair was an expert on equine reproduction, a veterinarian much in demand.

"Oh, Harry." Exasperated, Susan cracked Harry's knuckles with a spoon.

"You asked how he was, not how we're doing."

"Don't get technical."

"All right. All right. We were keeping to our Wednesday-night dates until now. We're having fun." She shrugged. "I don't know if lightning can strike twice."

"Me either."

"I get so sick of people trying to get us back together. We've been divorced for four years. The first year was hell-"

Susan interrupted. "I remember."

"I don't know if time heals all wounds or if you just get smarter about yourself. Get more realistic about your expectations of other people and yourself."

"God, Harry, that sounds like the beginnings of maturity." Susan faked a gasp.

"Scary, isn't it?" She stood up. "Want more of your hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, let's finish off the lot." Susan stood up.

"Sit down."

"No, let me bring the cup to you. Easier to pour over the sink."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Harry picked up the pan and carefully poured hot chocolate into Susan's cup and then refilled her own. "The weatherman says it's going to warm up to fifty degrees tomorrow."

"You wouldn't know it now. I don't mind snow but ice plucks my last nerve. Especially with the kids out driving in it. I know they have good reflexes but I also know they haven't experienced as much as we have and I wonder what they'll do in that first spinout. What if another car is coming in the opposite lane?"

"Susan, they'll learn and you can't protect them anyway."

"Yeah. Still."

"Aren't you amazed that Miranda has kept to her diet in the dead of winter?"

"Still baking things for the store and her friends. I never realized she had such discipline."

"Shows what love will do."

Miranda had lost her husband over ten years ago. By all accounts it was a happy marriage and when George Hogendobber passed away, Miranda consoled herself with food. Ten years of consoling takes a long time to remove. The incentive was the return of her high-school boyfriend, now a widower, for their high-school reunion. Sparks flew, and as Miranda described it, they were "keeping company."

"The football team."

"What?" Harry, accustomed to abrupt shifts in subject from her old friend-indeed she was often guilty of them herself-couldn't follow this one.

"I bet that's why Sam Mahanes is mad at Bruce Buxton. Because Bruce operates on all the football players, and didn't he just get a big write-up in the paper for his work on the safety? You know that kid that everyone thinks will make All-American next year if his knee comes back. And Isabelle Otey, the girls' basketball star. He gets all the stars. Jealousy?"