Charlaine Harris - Poppy Done to Death

“Yeah, ever since we moved to Pomona, she’s worked at an insurance company as a clerk.”

“I talked to her.”

He froze in the act of turning on the oven. He’d already found the box of Bagel Bites in the freezer compartment. “Um, how is she?” There were so many layers to his voice-guilt, anger, grief-it was hard to pick the dominant emotion.

“Glad you’re okay. Relieved she knows where you are. Not too happy that you’re with me.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have to apologize. She wants you to be safe and happy more than anything.”

“Then why can’t they act like it?” he said furiously. “Why can’t they act like parents, instead of switching partners like they were kids?”

This was a complex bunch of ideas. I was beginning to get the feeling that there was no simple way to raise a teenager, or even to answer the questions one might ask you. Was every conversation with my brother going to be as loaded as this one? The prospect was exhausting.

“People don’t always do what I wish they would, either,” I said. In fact, people stubbornly lived their lives as they wanted, without regard to me, to an amazing degree. I suppressed this observation, as I expected it wouldn’t find favor with Phillip.

We talked for over an hour while Phillip ate (and ate, and ate). I told him about the possible arrival of Poppy’s parents and introduced him to Madeleine, who came in while he was wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Is that a cat?” he asked, regarding Madeleine with startled eyes.

“Sure,” I said, trying not to sound offended. “She’s really old, I know…”

“She’s really fat .”

“Well, that, too. She doesn’t get as much exercise as she used to, now that we live in town.”

“She probably can’t walk more than five feet,” Phillip said scornfully.

“I guess she is a little dumpy,” I said, wondering how long it had been since I’d actually looked at Madeleine and really evaluated her. “You know, she must be-let’s see, when my friend Jane died and left me Madeleine, she was at least six years old. That was at least seven years ago. Wow, Madeleine, you are really old.” I tended to forget between vet appointments.

“Almost as old as I am,” my brother said.

That was a startling thought. I wondered if any of Madeleine’s kittens were still alive. I scrabbled around in my memory for the names of the kind people who’d adopted them. That led to another thought, one I should have mentioned earlier.

“Oh, your mom said it was okay for you to stay this week,” I told him.

Phillip hadn’t asked, but he’d been anxious; I could see his shoulders relax. I scolded myself for not having told him sooner. A deep sigh left him, as if the weight of the world had squeezed the air out of his lungs.

“I’ll clean up the kitchen this time,” I told my brother, “but from now on, when you use it, you wash it. That’s the rule.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I clean up at home, honest. Sometimes I vacuum and stuff, when it’s on my list.”

I’d done the few dishes, wiped down the kitchen surfaces, and straightened up the living room a little, when Phillip, who’d been wandering around, said, “He doesn’t really look that different.” He was looking at a newspaper article about Robin’s latest book. I’d clipped it to give Robin when he returned.

“I don’t think so, either,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“And you guys are dating.”

“Yes.”

“Are you… um… really tight?”

“We’re not dating each other exclusively,” I said, though I hadn’t dated anyone else since Robin had returned to town. On the other hand, I hadn’t dated anyone before then, either. But we hadn’t talked about exclusivity.

“If he asked you to marry him, what would you say?”

“I would say it’s none of your business,” I said, stating it more harshly than I’d intended. “No, I’m sorry I said that.” Phillip’s face had flushed. “Truly, Phillip, I married Martin really quickly, and though I’m not sorry and never have been, I guess now I feel a little… cautious about doing the same thing again.” Then I felt like a hypocrite. I was as quick in making up my mind as I ever had been. I was just trying to put a mature face on for Phillip’s benefit. But I knew I would never stop making up my mind quickly. That was my nature.

The Wynns pulled to the curb twenty minutes later. Avery, who’d called me to announce their arrival, had led them over in his car. He came inside for just a minute to reintroduce us. Avery looked awful, but then, I was sure I looked no better.

“The police are really asking questions,” he whispered as he gave me a hug.

“Well, sure,” I said, surprised. “That would be the way to find out who did such an awful thing to Poppy.” Avery was speaking as though asking questions would lead to unpleasant revelations, when what we wanted, as a family, was the truth. But I was grateful to him for escorting the Wynns in and easing the way, so I tried to be friendly.

I had known the Wynns only slightly, and that when I was more or less a child, so it was almost like meeting them for the first time. Sandy and Marvin Wynn were into their seventies, but they were both healthy and lean as whips. They’d always eaten correctly, walked four miles a day, and done things like taking square-dancing classes, or tai chi for beginners. Poppy, their late-in-life and unexpected child, had not had a chance of being included in this harmonious twosome. As much as they seemed to care for their daughter, when she’d begun to act out in high school, the Wynns hadn’t had a clue how to handle the problem. They’d clung to their sanity and hoped that Hurricane Poppy would lose its impetus in time.

Tonight, they were exhausted and grief-stricken and stunned. Somehow or other, they’d seen Poppy steered safely into the harbor of marriage and motherhood in suburbia, and now she had been killed in a horrible way, despite her achievement of a smooth life.

I had no idea what the Wynns needed. I didn’t know whether to try to get them to talk, to hustle them into their bedroom, or to feed them… I’d had enough experience with grief to know that its effects can be unpredictable.

Phillip shook their hands, though I don’t think he registered with them. Sandy hugged me as though we were very close, which we had never been, and Marvin hugged me, too, murmuring into my ear that he was so grateful to me for putting them up; the drive had been so long and confusing…

“Have you eaten?” I asked.

“Yes, I think we stopped a couple of hours ago,” Sandy said. “I think we ate. I’m not hungry. Are you, Marvin?”

I remembered Marvin Wynn’s hair as being red. Now it was snowy white. His face was lean and lined, and he had broad shoulders. He looked as though normally he could climb a mountain without breathing hard, and Sandy could probably drag a sled through the snow for a few miles. But right now, their faces were gray and sagging. Marvin shook his head. “No, not hungry.”

I showed them the bathroom they would share with Phillip (which I had restored to its orderly state) and then their bedroom. I’d opened boxes of tissues and left them on the bedside tables. There was free closet space and a couple of free drawers, extra blankets at the foot of the bed.

“If you need anything during the night, just come get me,” I said, showing them where my bedroom was. “Otherwise, there are cold drinks in the refrigerator, muffins in the bread box, and the coffeepot is right here.”

“We don’t drink coffee,” Sandy said earnestly. “But thank you. We’ll just wash up and go to bed, if that’s okay.”