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shit! Taking my granddaughter away from me before
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we’ve gotten ourselves acquainted.” Mildred had her
arms akimbo. “Know what your problem is, Em? You
head’s too stuffed with schooling to have room for
sense.”
A soundless scream tore apart Emma’s lips. “How
often must I keep saying—your family is dead!
Everyone. Dead ... dead ... dead and buried.” She drew
a racking breath. Her throat hurt. My God, she rarely
raised her voice. As for screaming ... what must
Howard think of her?
He stood rigid in the doorway, his face set in
pacifying
lines.
“Relax,
Emma.”
He
sounded
as
frightened as that time when he found a decimal point
in the wrong place. “You’ve been overdoing.”
“Not on account of me, she hasn’t.” Mildred
positioned herself inches from Emma. An ingratiating
smile for the son who couldn’t see her. “Never could
understand, Em, why your mom and dad—the Bobbsey
Twins—rate so high above me. Not here doing their bit, are they?
‘Course not! Off on some fancy-dancy cruise to the
Parakeet Isles. How I do remember that first Christmas
after you and Howie were married. Your mom gets a
black silk nightdress. Me—I get an umbrella. And know
what? It leaked the first time a bird pissed on it. Didn’t matter. I
already had three—still in their boxes.”
Emma’s eyes went wild. Worse, she hurled herself
at Mildred. “You never would have worn a black silk
nightgown.”
“Certainly not, dear.” Howard backed into the
nursery. “Mind if I have a few moments quiet time with
Kathleen?” He closed the door. There was a telephone
in there. Was he about to phone Dr. Hubner, the
gynecologist, requesting a referral to a psychiatrist?
Mildred adjusted her glasses. “Seems to me, hon,
you and Howie aren’t communicating like you should.
Secrets hurt, not heal, a marriage—as you would
know, Em, if you took time to watch the soaps. Best if
I go to my room. Last thing on earth I want is to be a
cause of friction.”
Emma closed her eyes. When she opened them,
she was alone. Entering the nursery, she found
Howard holding the baby—not the phone. Kathleen
was crying, which hopefully had kept him from turning
in a report on his wife’s unnerving behavior.
Is that what she wants, Emma questioned, me out
of the way in the psychiatric ward, and Howard and
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Kathleen all to herself? How I wish I had pushed her
out the window ... Her hands clenched as the futility
struck her. Mildred couldn’t be made to die twice.
“Howard.” Emma opened the nursery door and
crept up behind him, very much as Mildred had done
to her. “Excuse my behavior out in the hallway—due, I
believe, to some sort of waking nightmare.” She grabbed at his
arms.
“Careful!” He sidestepped her, his arms protecting
the baby. Emma had lost sight of the fact that he was
holding Kathleen. The baby’s cries ripped through her.
“I will go and freshen up.” Her smile, meant to be
appeasing, appeared to frighten father and child. “I
told Ruth we would go over for a little while.”
“Emma”—Howard
was
frowning—“the
baby
is
distressed.”
“She’ll be fine.”
Escaping into the bathroom, Emma pondered what
Howard would say to Ruth and her husband, Joe.
Then all thought was drowned out by Mildred’s
singing—in a rusty voice, a ribald song about a monk and a cow.
She was there—under the spurting shower, all lathered up and
wearing a pink plastic cap.
“Shucks! Never a moment’s privacy around here!”
A snatched washcloth and the shower curtain swished
shut.
Ruth’s house became an oasis. Emma, while
getting Kathleen wrapped up, fought the fear that her
mother-in-law would decide to intrude along. Could
Mildred ... manifest away from the apartment?
So far ... so good, they were out the door. Howard
held on to her arm as they crossed the car park. Hurry
... ! And then she almost caused him to trip, along with
the carrying crib, when she twisted around to look
back up at the apartment window. There it was—the
reproachful silhouette.
Howard frowned. “Emma, please—did you forget
something?”
“I thought I might have ... then remembered I
hadn’t.”
Kathleen fussed during the short drive. A relief to
pull into Ruth’s toy-strewn driveway. Before Emma
could get her door open, her nieces and nephews
spilled out onto the porch, seven-year-old Sean yelling,
“Aunt Emma, you won’t believe who is here!”
She swayed against Howard. Logic should have
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told her that Mildred did not need a car for
transportation. The children dragged Emma out of the
car, and next she was in Ruth’s burlap living
room—where cereal bowls were stuck in among
bookcases and jigsaw pieces made a broken mosaic on
the floor.
“Who is here?” she managed.
Ruth was scooping up magazines and tossing them
in a corner. “Uncle Mo and Aunt Vin; they called just
after you and I spoke. The more the merrier, I said. Joe
has them out back showing off his tomatoes. We’re
being taken over by them.” She straightened up. “Jeez,
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