Ellen Hartman - Out of Bounds

Nonchalantly, Posy stretched one hand toward the bag, but she was too slow. With another quick swish of her tail, the dog shoved her face into Posy’s bag and emerged with her acid-yellow, leather business card wallet clutched between small, white teeth.

“No. Angel, drop it!”

Angel disappeared under the skirt around the table holding a model-train display with a village skating rink as the centerpiece. The tiny bell in the steeple of the chapel jingled when the dog bumped against the table leg. Posy knew from unfortunate experience that there’d be no catching Angel, and less than no chance the dog would do something as helpful as obey a command. She didn’t even bother lifting the table skirt. If Angel had a Twitter account and opposable thumbs, she’d send the #SillyHumans hash tag trending every day.

“Angel is under stress right now,” Trish said. Which was a new one. Sometimes Angel was delicate. Other times she’d eaten something that didn’t agree with her. The one true explanation for her dog’s terrible behavior—that Angel was a demon-spawned obedience-school dropout in a fluffy white fur coat—was never mentioned. “I’ll replace that...whatever it was.”

Posy lifted her bag, looking in vain for a spare inch or two on one of the tables where she could put it out of the dog’s reach. She ended up slinging it over her shoulder, holding it tight against her side with one arm.

Her mom bustled toward the back of the store. “I’m unpacking a shipment. Come on and I can tell you the news,” she said. “Watch that garland!”

Posy stooped to duck under a rope of gold, spray-painted eucalyptus leaves and pinecones. She turned sideways to edge past a display of the beautifully detailed, handcrafted papier-mâché mangers her mom commissioned from an artist in Pennsylvania.

Wonders didn’t have aisles so much as narrow alleys between displays crammed full of Christmas glitz and glitter. From the handblown ornaments hanging on color-coordinated trees, to the loops of beaded crystal garland Posy ducked through as she passed the register, the store carried everything and anything Christmas and delicate.

Her mom’s real specialty was miniatures. Wonders was the best-stocked retail outlet on the East Coast for holiday decorators who took verisimilitude in their train displays or light-up Christmas villages to the extreme. Every inch of horizontal space inside Wonders contained tiny, detailed, uncannily realistic miniatures and scene scapes.

Posy ran a hand over the thick nap of an ivory, velvet tree skirt. She’d worn more than her fair share of velvet Christmas dresses when she was in elementary school. Each one had been beautiful on the hanger, but the heavy fabric and childish styles had exaggerated Posy’s large frame, making her feel even more self-conscious. Trish had exquisite sewing skills—she just didn’t have any gauge to tell her when enough was so much more than enough.

In the crowded back office, her mom was bent over an open cardboard box, Bubble Wrap mounded around her ankles. A ceramic angel lay on the carpet next to her feet. She didn’t look up as Posy came in, but said, “See that envelope on my desk?”

Posy nodded and then realized her mom, who was unwrapping another angel, couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

“It’s for you. Open it up.”

The envelope was blank, no return address or mailing labels, and Posy couldn’t help feeling curious as she undid the metal clasp and slid the sheaf of stapled pages out.

She read the first few lines of the top sheet, then quickly leafed through the attached deeds and mortgage documents. “Mom?”

Trish put the second angel down and then lowered herself to her knees to reach deep into the box in front of her. “It’s your legacy, Posy.”

The papers listed all her mom’s assets, the house, Wonders, a two-year-old minivan and a safe-deposit box at the bank.

“My what?”

“Your legacy. From me to you.”

Her mom was trying to give her all the clutter Posy had been doing her best to keep strictly out of her own life for the past twenty years.

Posy was both touched and horrified. “This isn’t a legacy, it’s—” An albatross. “Mom...”

“Posy. You’ve been telling me for years that I need to sell the house, haven’t you? It’s too big for one person. And every time I add a new product line to the store, you accuse me of slipping one step closer to a hoarding diagnosis.”

Posy nodded. She felt completely confused and a finger of panic crept up her back. Surely her mom wasn’t planning to leave Kirkland. Where would she go? Rochester? Posy’s brand-new condo?

“Well, consider your advice taken. I’m selling everything. To you.”

“Selling?” Posy said, looking more closely at the pages. “Oh, Mom, it’s a nice impulse, but I just bought my condo. I don’t need your house or your car, and I can’t take care of Wonders. And where are you going to live? What’s going on?” She paused as fear crept into her gut, making her queasy. “Wait, why are you doing this? Are you okay? Everything’s okay, right?”

Posy set the legal papers aside and took a good look at her mom. Friends often described Trish as animated. Her ash-blond hair and bright green eyes were different enough from Posy’s black hair and dark brown eyes that they’d never be mistaken for relatives, let alone mother and daughter. Even though her mom was pretty, as sparkling as one of her ornaments, Posy noticed now that there was something different about Trish. Was the sparkle only a fever?

“I’m in love.” Trish clasped her hands over her heart. Actually clasped them and closed her eyes. She was a Precious Moments statue come to life.

Her mom spent way too much time looking at snow globe scenes.

CHAPTER TWO

“Y OU’ RE IN LOVE?” Posy stared at her mom, who was still clasping her hands to her heart. Still surrounded by Bubble Wrap.

“Mitch. His name is Mitch. He’s a bit older than me. He was a surgeon—worked on hands—and he’s retired now out in Ohio, with pots of money. We’ve been corresponding online since last October, and seeing each other for three months. Posy, you won’t believe this, but he loves me. He loves everything about me and he wants me to move in with him.”

Trish was right. Posy didn’t quite believe it. After her marriage broke up, Trish had become increasingly needy and clingy when anyone so much as asked her on a date.

Posy had a clear memory of a guy who’d come to pick Trish up for a first date being coerced into fixing the washing machine. He hadn’t come back for a second date. For Trish, love meant never having to solve your own problems. Not too many men stuck around after the first crisis.

It had been several years since her mom had gone out with anyone, as far as Posy knew. Despite her daily phone calls and innumerable weekly texts, she’d been keeping this guy a secret for three months?

“A surgeon? Where did you meet?”

If her mom said Match.com, she was going straight to the FBI to get a profile of this supposed surgeon/

paragon. She felt disloyal, but it was hard to believe Trish had met a guy and hadn’t scared him off. That had never happened, in all of Posy’s twenty-eight years.

“We met at the Holiday World trade show. I was testing a line of nutcrackers, which if anyone ever tries to tell you resin composites look exactly like hand-carved wood, you should run the other way. But anyway, Mitch noticed that I was uncomfortable with the salesman’s hard sell and he stepped in and put a stop to it.”

Anyone who helped her mom walk away from an investment in faux-wood, resin-composite nutcrackers won bonus points in Posy’s book.

“Why was he looking at nutcrackers?”

“He wasn’t. He was buying antique-style streetlights for his train display. The wires are so thin you can barely see them. I’ll show you—”