Charlaine Harris - A Fool and His Honey

This might be the only moment I had to myself today, I figured, so I called the hospital in Atlanta to ask about John.

Mother answered the phone in his room. She told me in that hushed voice people reserve for bedsides of the very ill that John was resting, that tests were ongoing, and that John had definitely had a cardiac incident, which I interpreted as “heart attack.”

“What are his options?” I asked, and Mother said all those buzzwords like “angioplasty” and “stress tests.” I barely listened, because all I wanted was the bottom line: Was John likely to die soon or not? After I’d gathered that he was going to live, barring some sudden and drastic circumstance, I was content to save the details of his treatment until I could spare a portion of my brain to understand what was entailed.

Mother didn’t say a word about the baby. She was preoccupied, too.

I tightened the laces on my high-tops and tried to tiptoe down the stairs. Martin and Rory were in the kitchen, and I saw that Martin had relented enough to pour the boy a cup of coffee and microwave a couple of cinnamon rolls for him. Rory looked up when I entered, and let a gleam of admiration show a little too obviously. So I didn’t offer to fix him any bacon or eggs.

“Rory here was just telling me about Craig,” Martin said. He was sitting opposite our visitor, his arms crossed over his chest, his face relaxed and cool. Mr. Skeptical.

“What was he saying?” I slipped into a chair at one end of the table. The back part of my brain was wondering if I could borrow a baby monitor from someone. Wasn’t that what the surveillance thing was called?

“I was telling Mr. Bartell, I’ve been Craig’s friend since we were little. Our folks were friends, too. Then when Craig’s mom and dad died, Craig moved in with his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Harbor. His brother Dylan was old enough to be on his own, but too young to keep an eye on Craig, and the Harbors were glad to have him.” Rory paused to take a bite of cinnamon roll, and I worked on keeping the relationships straight in my head.

“And that was the couple at Regina’s wedding, the people who acted in the place of Craig’s parents?”

“That was his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Harbor,” Rory confirmed. “They had raised four girls of their own. But now Mr. Harbor, he’s kind of sickly.”

Martin and I sat blinking at him like foolish owls.

“Would that be Hugh Harbor?” Martin asked, obviously dredging the name up from his distant memory.

“Yep,” Rory mumbled, caught with more sweet roll in his mouth. “Mrs. Harbor used to be a Thurlkill.”

“And your folks?”

“My mother, Cathy, used to be a Thurlkill, too,” Rory said, seeming rather proud of the fact. “Me and Craig’re kind of related. My dad is Chuck Brown, his dad was Ross Graham.”

Martin looked away from the table, letting his gaze light on the front of the refrigerator. I knew he was thinking deep thoughts because his fingers were twiddling, the way they do when he’s having ideas he can’t talk about.

“Craig’s brother was at the wedding,” he said abruptly. “He seemed like a nice enough guy.”

“Dylan’s a great guy,” Rory agreed readily. “And he and his wife Shondra, they have the cutest little girl.”

Martin did a little more staring and twiddling.

I felt like I had to say something.

“Rory, when you feel like freshening up, there’s a toothbrush in a plastic wrapper in the top drawer in the downstairs bathroom,” I told our surprise guest. “There are extra towels in the closet by the sink, and I think I have shampoo and soap out and ready.”

Rory took the not-too-subtle hint in a jiffy. “That was real good,” he told Martin sincerely, carrying his coffee cup and plate over to the sink.

I had another thought. “If you’d like to set your clothes out the bathroom door, I’ll throw ‘em in the washer,” I offered. I rose to go upstairs to check on Hayden. “I’ll put a robe in the bathroom first.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, smiling shyly.

Martin was staring at Rory as if he were an alien wearing an ill-fitting human suit. I padded out of the room and began taking the stairs at my usual pace, and then realized I’d have to go slower. The night before had taken its toll, and toting the baby around had already made my arms trembly. I was in no shape to be thrown into the role of mother.

It wasn’t any trouble finding a robe for Rory to use, since when people can’t think of anything to give Martin, they give him bathrobes. Some men get gloves, some men get ties; my husband gets bathrobes. Last year, my seldom-seen father had sent us matching green terry ones (which made us look like walking bundles of Astroturf). Martin’s son Barrett had sent him a silk paisley, and my mother had given him a blue flannel. The year before that, Barby had presented him with the nicest one of all, gray polished cotton with his monogram in maroon.

I hung the green terry robe in the downstairs bathroom and Rory scooted in. A few minutes later, his clothes were deposited discreetly outside the bathroom door, and I went to the washer and dryer closet at the rear of the house in the kitchen to start a load. There was always something in the laundry basket I could throw in with a small bundle of clothes.

Martin had gotten the portable phone and was punching in a series of numbers, peering at a page in his personal address book. He looked up at the kitchen wall clock as he listened to the ringing at the other end.

“Hello,” he said. I thought he sounded uncertain, which was rare for Martin. “Cindy Bartell, please.”

I began to load dishes into the dishwasher-anything to stay in the room and keep working without making it obvious I was determined to listen to this conversation.

“Cindy? This is Martin. Have you been doing well? Barrett told me you’d taken a partner on… yes, he called me at work last week.”

Barrett hated to call here because I might answer the phone.

“I’m glad you’re finally getting some free time. Who’d you…?”

Martin’s face underwent the oddest change.

“Dennis Stinson,” he said. “Hmmm.” He looked as if he was restraining all kinds of comments. I gathered Dennis Stinson was not unknown to Martin; but frankly, Cindy’s business dealings were not my prime concern at this point in time.

I just barely heard Hayden whimper upstairs, and I cringed. I went up the stairs so fast I wished I’d had Martin clocking me. I stood by the portable crib and held my hands up in a soothing gesture, as if that would calm the baby back into sleep. I noticed that my hands were shaking, and I was saying, “Sshhhh! Sshhhh!” in a kind of frantic way. Hayden’s blue-veined eyelids fluttered once more before he settled back into sleep.

Feeling as though I’d just avoided a herd of stampeding buffalo, I shambled back down, the stairs and collapsed into the chair across from Martin. I slumped over the table, burying my face in my folded arms. After a moment, I felt Martin’s fingers in my hair. He stroked my head the way a man absently pats a dog, but I was so tired by my unusually prolonged turn at being the strong one that I found even an offhand caress comforting.

“So, have you seen Regina lately?” Martin said into the telephone.

I could hear a tinny buzz that was Cindy’s answer.

“Not in five months? Did you notice, the last time you saw her, that she’d gained some weight?”

Buzz, buzz.

“She had a baby,” Martin said.

I heard a kind of shriek coming from the other end.

“Yes, really.”

I raised my head to look at Martin, but he was scowling at the stove while Cindy kept talking.

“I can imagine you’d want to talk to her, but the fact is… she’s disappeared.”