08 Thicker Than Water by Rett MacPherson

Author:Rett MacPherson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Cozy, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Fiction
ISBN: 9781429988421
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-03-01T06:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

When I arrived home, I walked straight through the house and out to the back porch. I stood there for a few minutes taking cleansing breaths. My chickens clucked in the darkness. They were usually asleep by now; something must have been irritating them. The leaves rustled up above, and the undeniable smell of rain hung heavy in the air.

The words from the meeting echoed in my head. That woman. Eleanore had called me that woman. When did I go from being Torie to that woman?

After a few minutes Rudy came out onto the porch to interrupt my trip down memory lane. I was grateful.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, Helen is here.”

“Here?” I asked.

“Just knocked a second ago. Torie, what happened?”

Shaking my head in the dark, I turned and walked inside. He wouldn’t have believed me even if I had told him. The whole world had gone insane, and somebody forgot to let me in on the changing of the guard. I walked into the living room with my arms crossed, ready to defend myself, but at the same time oddly disinterested.

“Torie,” Helen said.

“What?”

“You won,” she said.

I would have thought the news would thrill me, but, honestly, I only felt a little relieved.

“I made VP. We’ll be working together,” she said. “Side by side. Well, when I’m not at the candy shop. I think it’ll be fun.”

Just then the doorbell rang. I called for the person to come in. The door opened, and it was my sister, Stephanie. It was one of those awkward moments when nobody was sure what to say. “I … just came by to see if you were okay,” Stephanie said, eyeing Helen.

“Well, it’s not every day that one lives through a mutiny,” I said.

“Oh, Torie, you’re overreacting,” Helen said.

“Overreacting? I was attacked tonight, Helen, and if I remember correctly, you never once spoke up in my defense,” I said.

“Torie, that’s not true,” Helen said. “The historical society is allowed to disagree with you.”

“Yes, they are, Helen. But they didn’t disagree with me, Helen. They didn’t disagree with one single policy or event or thing that I have done, save for hiring the damn Brown Jugs. It was not about me as a genealogist or a historian. It was personal,” I said, and the tears began to fall. I liked it better when I was numb. Unfortunately, with me, the more time I have to think about something, the angrier or the more hurt I get, until I ride the wave and it goes away completely. Unfortunately, right now, I was on top of the wave.

By this point, Rudy had come into the living room, and my mother-in-law came stumbling out of the bathroom, with her hair in curlers and cold cream plastered on her face. I hadn’t realized until that moment that Mrs. O’Shea had no eyebrows. Even that freak of nature could not distract me from Helen and what had just transpired.

“You cannot expect to be in your position,” Helen said, “and not have to endure a few personal digs.

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