Шарлин Харрис - Dead and Gone

“I hadn’t planned on having children at all,” she said. “Which was okay with JB.”

“So . . . ?”

“Well, even multiple birth control methods don’t always work,” Tara said, looking down at her hands, which were folded on top of a bridal magazine. “And I just can’t have it taken care of. It’s ours. So.”

“Might . . . might you come around to being glad about this?”

She tried to smile. “JB is really happy. It’s hard for him to keep it a secret. But I wanted to wait for the first three months to pass. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

“I swear,” I said, reaching over to pat her shoulder, “you’ll be a good mother.”

“You really think so?” She looked, and felt, terrified. Tara’s folks had been the kind of parents who occasionally get shot-gunned by their offspring. Tara’s abhorrence of violence had prevented her from taking that path, but I don’t think anyone would have been surprised if the older Thorntons had vanished one night. A few people would have applauded.

“Yeah, I really think so.” I meant it. I could hear , directly from her head, Tara’s determination to wipe out everything her own mother had done to her by being the best mother she could be to her own child. In Tara’s case, that meant she would be sober, gentle-handed, clean of speech, and full of praise.

“I’ll show up at every classroom open house and teacher conference,” she said, now in a voice that was almost frightening in its intensity. “I’ll bake brownies. My child will have new clothes. Her shoes will fit. She’ll get her shots, and she’ll get her braces. We’ll start a college fund next week. I’ll tell her I love her every damn day.”

If that wasn’t a great plan for being a good mother, I couldn’t imagine what a better one could be.

We hugged each other when I got up to leave. This is the way it’s supposed to be, I thought.

I went home, ate a belated lunch, and changed into my work clothes.

When the phone rang, I hoped it was Sam calling to smooth things over, but the voice on the other end was an older man’s and unfamiliar.

“Hello? Is Octavia Fant there, please?”

“No, sir, she’s out. May I take a message?”

“If you would.”

“Sure.” I’d answered the phone in the kitchen, so there was a pad and pencil handy.

“Please tell her Louis Chambers called. Here’s my number.” He gave it to me slowly and carefully, and I repeated it to make sure I’d put it down correctly. “Ask her to call me, please. I’ll be glad to take a collect call.”

“I’ll make sure she gets your message.”

“Thank you.”

Hmmm. I couldn’t read thoughts over the phone, which normally I considered a great relief. But I would have enjoyed learning a little more about Mr. Chambers.

When Amelia came home a little after five, Octavia was in the car. I gathered Octavia had been walking around downtown Bon Temps filling out job applications, while Amelia had put in an afternoon at the insurance agency. It was Amelia’s evening to cook, and though I had to leave for Merlotte’s in a few minutes, I enjoyed watching her leap into action, creating spaghetti sauce. I handed Octavia her message while Amelia was chopping onions and a bell pepper.

Octavia made a choked sound and grew so still that Amelia stopped chopping and joined me in waiting for the older woman to look up from the piece of paper and give us a little backstory. That didn’t happen.

After a moment, I realized Octavia was crying, and I hurried to my bedroom and got a tissue. I tried to slip it to Octavia tactfully, like I hadn’t noticed anything amiss but just happened to have an extra Kleenex in my hand.

Amelia carefully looked down at the cutting board and resumed chopping while I glanced at the clock and began fishing around in my purse for my car keys, taking lots of unnecessary time to do it.

“Did he sound well?” Octavia asked, her voice choked.

“Yes,” I said. There was only so much I could get from a voice on the other end of a phone line. “He sounded anxious to talk to you.”

“Oh, I have to call him back,” she said, and her voice was wild.

“Sure,” I said. “Just punch in the number. Don’t worry about calling collect or anything; the phone bill’ll tell us how much it was.” I glanced over at Amelia, cocking an eyebrow. She shook her head. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, either.

Octavia placed the call with shaking fingers. She pressed the phone to her ear after the first ring. I could tell when Louis Chambers answered. Her eyes shut tight, and her hand clenched the phone so hard the muscles stood out.

“Oh, Louis,” she said, her voice full of raw relief and amazement. “Oh, thank God. Are you all right?”

Amelia and I shuffled out of the kitchen at that point. Amelia walked to my car with me. “You ever heard of this Louis guy?” I asked.

“She never talked about her private life when she was working with me. But other witches told me Octavia had a steady boyfriend. She hasn’t mentioned him since she’s been here. It looks like she hasn’t heard from him since Katrina.”

“She might not have thought he survived,” I said, and we widened our eyes at each other.

“That’s big stuff,” Amelia said. “Well. We may be losing Octavia.” She tried to stifle her relief, but of course, I could read it. As fond as Amelia was of her magical mentor, I’d realized that for Amelia, living with Octavia was like living with one of your junior high teachers.

“I got to go,” I said. “Keep me posted. Text me if there’s any big news.” Texting was one of my new Amelia-taught skills.

Despite the chilly air, Amelia sat on one of the lawn chairs that we’d recently hauled out of the storage shed to encourage ourselves to anticipate spring. “The minute I know something,” she agreed. “I’ll wait here a few minutes, then go check on her.”

I got in my car and hoped the heater would warm up soon. In the gathering dusk, I drove to Merlotte’s. I saw a coyote on the way. Usually they were too clever to be seen, but this one was trotting along the side of the road as if he had an appointment in town. Maybe it was really a coyote, or maybe it was a person in another form. When I considered the possums and coons and the occasional armadillo I saw squashed by the road every morning, I wondered how many werecreatures had gotten killed in their animal forms in such careless ways. Maybe some of the bodies the police labeled murder victims were actually people killed by accident in their alternate form. I remembered all animal traces had vanished from Crystal’s body when she’d been taken down from the cross, after the nails had been removed. I was willing to bet those nails had been silver. There was so much I didn’t know.

When I came in Merlotte’s back door, full of plans to reconcile with Sam, I found my boss having an argument with Bobby Burnham. It was almost dark now, and Bobby should be off the clock. Instead, he was standing in the hall outside of Sam’s office. He was red in the face and fit to be tied.

“What’s up?” I said. “Bobby, did you need to talk to me?”

“Yeah. This guy wouldn’t tell me when you were going to get here,” Bobby said.

“This guy is my boss, and he isn’t obliged to tell you anything,” I said. “Here I am. What do you need to say to me?”

“Eric sent you this card, and he ordered me to tell you I’m at your disposal whenever you need me. I’m supposed to wash your car if you want me to.” Bobby’s face went even redder as he said this.

If Eric had thought Bobby would be made humble and compliant after a public humiliation, he was nuts. Now Bobby would hate me for a hundred years, if he lived that long. I took the card Bobby handed me and said, “Thanks, Bobby. Go back to Shreveport.”