Charlaine Harris - Poppy Done to Death

Melinda said, “I can sew it shut if we just cut a thin slit.”

The sharpest knife we could find glided easily into the sage green material. Melinda held the cushion absolutely flat and still while I enlarged the opening. Melinda’s fingers were far longer than mine, so she assumed the task of extraction. Tweezed between her long forefinger and middle finger, the piece of paper hissed like a snake against the silk as she drew it out.

I unfolded the paper with as much terror as if it had been an actual reptile.

It was the results of a DNA test. “A paternity test,” I told Melinda. “It looks like Poppy took two samples in to be tested against Chase’s DNA. She paid for it up front, cash. Get this-it was ordered by Dr. Stuart Embler.” I looked at Melinda significantly, then returned my attention to the letter. “She told them-well, I can’t figure out exactly what she told them, but subject A was not the father, and Subject B was.”

Melinda opened and closed her mouth several times, as if she thought she knew what to say, then decided that she didn’t. I knew exactly how she felt.

“What are we going to do?” she asked finally.

“What a good question,” I said. “And I don’t have the slightest idea what the answer is. Should we make an appointment with Aubrey?”

“But he’d know then. We can’t have anyone knowing if we can prevent it. On the other hand, this seems like too much for us. This is really huge.”

“Yes.”

“Chase may be John David’s son, and he may not. My God, what will happen to Chase if he isn’t John David’s?”

“He’ll still be Poppy’s son, so that means…”

“Her parents will get him? Absolutely not.”

“But we don’t have the right to lie about it!”

“No! But we can’t take Chase away from John David!”

“But he has another father! A real father!”

“Maybe John David is the real father. Maybe John David is subject B.”

We both took a deep breath. “I say we burn this piece of paper,” I said. I looked at my sister-in-law steadily.

“I say we should sleep on it and talk to Aubrey tomorrow,” Melinda countered, neatly reversing her trend of a few moments before.

I was sorely tempted to grab it from her hand and rip it to shreds, as I had the repulsive pictures. Why the hell had I remembered the cushion on the chair? John David would never in a million years have messed with that cushion. If it had crinkled when he sat on it, he still wouldn’t have opened it up, an opinion I based simply on John David’s being a man.

Well, the deed had been done, and we were the possessors of yet another piece of unpleasant knowledge.

When I got home that evening, cooking was the bottom thing on my list of desirable activities. The day after Thanksgiving is just not a day to slave over the stove. That’s pretty much been done. So I was delighted to discover, among the messages on my answering machine, one from Robin inviting Phillip and me out to dinner. I almost dropped the phone in my haste to punch in his number so I could accept.

Phillip, back from a day out with another teenager, was less excited. The company of three adults seemed less appealing to him after a long afternoon with Josh, eyeing girls at the mall. I suspected my brother was lapsing back into his normal self, becoming more relaxed around me, rather than being so anxious to mind his manners and be helpful. He’d absorbed the fact that I wasn’t going to throw him out.

“Can’t I just stay here and eat leftovers?” he said in a voice suspiciously close to a whine.

“No, you can not,” I said in a voice suspiciously close to a direct order. I wondered again why my father hadn’t called to set up the return of Phillip.

Robin’s message was the third I’d listened to. The first two had been from, respectively, Cara Embler (who said she had found Moosie and would keep him at her house until we decided what to do with the cat), and the Clean Scene guy, Zachary Lee (who hoped we had found his service satisfactory and would recommend him to our friends). I looked at my watch and decided not to listen to my remaining messages. I was dusty, dirty, and badly in need of a general cleanup. I was thrilled Moosie had been found, and I made a mental note to call John David the next day and tell him the whereabouts of the little cat.

I told Phillip he looked fine. He hadn’t any more clothes anyway, and I hoped Robin would take that into consideration when he picked out a restaurant. I threw my clothes into the hamper, reflected that laundry day would have to be really soon, and tossed the small Wal-Mart bag I’d brought home with me onto the bathroom counter. Maybe tomorrow morning, I thought. Now was the worst time in the world.

The shower was blissful. I was clean all over, and relaxed, and much more optimistic when I emerged. I looked at myself in the mirror carefully. My bosom looked a little different, the aureoles darker, and when I put on my bra, I noticed that I was very sore indeed.

It took all I had to walk past the small bag, leaving it unopened.

Corinne was really fond of Italian food, and there was a new Italian restaurant about halfway between Lawrenceton and the interstate, an area that was beginning to run together in a big blur of commerce. Actually, the restaurant was not too far from the Grabbit Kwik, the filling station where Sandy Wynn had filled her car’s tank with gas on Monday.

I pushed the death of Poppy out of my mind. I tried not to think of all the unpleasant things Melinda and I had learned today. I forced myself not to think of the bag on the counter of my bathroom.

All that not thinking left my mind pretty empty. I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good conversationalist that night. I made an attempt to be a good listener, to encourage Corinne to talk, so I wouldn’t seem stupid by my silences. And I asked Robin a lot of questions. Phillip decided to talk about drug use in his school in California, to impress us unworldly southerners, I suppose. Robin reminded him in a few well-chosen anecdotes that he had spent the past two years living in Los Angeles among the movie crowd, and any stories Phillip chose to tell, Robin could easily top.

Corinne, as it transpired, had left her Chihuahua and her toy Manchester in the care of one of her daughters, and she had called to check on their well-being that very afternoon. Corinne was one of those women who had to have something to mother; for all I knew, that made her like most women. Now that her children were very much grown and gone, and her grandchildren visited from time to time but not for days in a row, the dogs had filled that gap for her. Though she was intelligent enough to realize not everyone wants to listen to detailed animal stories, she was besotted enough not to care, and we heard many anecdotes about Punky’s little trick with the bouncy ball, and Percy’s little wake-up routine.

That reminded me that I hadn’t laid eyes on Madeleine in a couple of days, and during a lull in the dog worship, I asked Phillip if he’d seen the massive old cat.

“No,” he said. “Maybe she didn’t like me and so she’s staying away until I leave.”

“Nothing would make Madeleine miss a meal,” I said.

“Was your cat named for the little girl in the books?” Corinne asked brightly.

“No, for the poisoner,” I answered, abstracted. “Madeleine Smith, Glasgow, 1857.”

“Oh,” Corinne said.

We didn’t hear any more dog stories for a while.

When Robin dropped us off, Phillip loped ahead to get in the house to watch some television show he was dying to see. Robin came in the foyer with me and shut the door behind him. He had a big, long, smoochy kiss on his mind, but when he pulled me to him, my sore chest protested.