Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery) (24 page)

Funny, she thought, how certain things stand out in your mind.
She could almost smell the delicious aroma of bacon frying as they walked in the front door
and headed for the kitchen
.
She closed her eyes and pictured
Nana
,
wearing
a
long, baggy apron
with
a bandana wrapped around her head, standing at
her
old
-fashioned
gas
stove
using a metal spatula to
flip eggs in her cast iron skillet.
She saw t
he long kitchen table covered in blue and white checked oilcloth and the five of them sitting there, eating, talking and laughing
.
After they finished
breakfast
, the grownups would linger over coffee and Marnie and Annie would go out the back door to play hide’n seek among the rows of tall corn in Nana’s garden
.
Those were such happy times.

But there were sad times too
.
She
thought back to when her parents were killed and Nana sold her house in Dayton and moved to Cincinnati, into
Ann’s
parents’ house in Westwood
.
It couldn’t have been easy for her to leave her own
home
and
all
her
friends
,
she
thought
,
b
ut she always put us first
.
She didn’t want
us to have to give up anything else
.
She tried so hard to help us deal with our grief
.
She smiled, re
calling
how Nana had completely red
ecorat
e
d
their bedroom to try to cheer them up
.
She
’d
painted the walls a pale lilac, hung white lace curtains on the windows and put up shelves on the walls to hold Marnie’s books and Annie’s toys
.

She
remembered
sitting on the living room sofa
with Nana
between her and Marnie
.
It was an evening about a month after
their
parents
’
deaths
.
She and Marnie were both crying because they still missed them so much
.
Nana put an arm around each of the girls and said, “It’s time
for us
to get on with our lives
.
I miss your parents too but they wouldn’t want us to sit around crying, now would they
?
They’ll never really be gone from us, you know
.
We’ll always have happy memories of them and we’ll keep them alive in our hearts.”

“Nana, you were always there for me,”
Ann
said. “Why did you have to die so suddenly?”
She
remembered that morning all too vividly.

She
was a senior in high school. It was a school day and, a
s usual,
she
awoke to the buzzing of her alarm clock. Still groggy, she plodded down the hallway and into the kitchen, expecting to see her grandmother standing at the stove, preparing breakfast, as she did every morning. But Nana wasn’t there. The house was unusually quiet. Marnie must have already left for school, she reasoned. But where was Nana?

She hurried through the house, searching every room, looking for her. No Nana. She decided to check the last possible place. Maybe Nana decided to do some laundry, she thought. She went to the basement
door
and, when she opened it, she could hear that the dryer was running. She
started down
the stairs and
screamed. Nana was lying
flat on her back
on the concrete floor
.
Her
eyes were closed, her
arms and legs were splayed
unnaturally
and there was a pool of blood around her head.

She raced down the steps. “Nana! Nana! Please wake up,” she pleaded, placing her fingers gently against her grandmother’s neck. Her pulse was very weak
and she was unconscious
but she was alive. Ann ran upstairs and called nine-one-one. Within minutes, she heard the wail of the sirens, coming closer and closer, but the paramedics were too late to save her beloved Nana. Just as they’d been too late to save her parents.

Tears welled up in Ann’s eyes
.
“Oh, Nana, I miss you so much!”

She could almost hear her grandmother’s voice, “Enough
.
Now, put on a happy face!”

She
sighed
.
“Nana, I have some good news
.
I started my new job today and I think I’m going to like it
.
It’s a lot of filing and organizing which is okay but I also answer the phones which I really like doing
.
To tell the truth, as much as I love being with the kids, it felt good today to talk to grownups for a change
.
Most days, the only adult I talk to is Olivia and that’s usually
only
for a few minutes here and there
.

“
Anyway, I know you’d be proud of me
.
You always told me to ‘push through the fear’ and I did
.
I was so scared but I did it
!
Why is it so hard for me to try new things and why can’t I stand up for myself the way you always could
?
I wish so much that I could be more like you
.
Marnie and I are both named after you but she’s more like you than I am
.
She’s strong and confident and she definitely doesn’t take any guff from anyone
.
Dad always said you were ‘full of piss and vinegar.’”
She laughed
.
“
He meant it as a compliment, I know.”

She
leaned back against the hard bench and closed her eyes
.
It was so quiet and peaceful here and the sun felt good on her face
.
It was nice to just “be” for a little while, to forget her worries and do nothing
.
If only life could be simpler, she thought
.
Why does everything have to be so complicated
?
Once again,
Nana’s words popped into her head,
‘
Put on a happy face
.
’
“
I’ll try, Nana,
”
she
said
.
“
I’ll try.
”

She glanced down at her wristwatch
.
“Oh my God
!”
She jumped up from the bench and blew a kiss toward her grandmother’s grave
.
“I love you, Nana,” she said
.
“But I’m late
.
I gotta
go
.
See ya soon.”

She
hurried home and, as she walked in the front door, Danielle called down to her, “We’re up here, Mom.”

Ann smiled as she climbed the stairs to the second floor
.
Once again, Olivia had saved the day
.
When she
went
in,
she saw
Danielle sprawled out on the sofa, reading the latest Harry Potter book
.
Olivia
sat
in her wheelchair next to Davey who was lying on the floor on his stomach, surrounded by stacks of photo albums.

“Mommy,” Davey said,
glancing
up at her, “come see what I’m doing.”

Ann knelt down beside him
.
“What are you looking at?”

“Pictures, old pictures
.
They’re all black and white; they didn’t have color in the olden days
.”

Ann glanced
over
at Olivia, smiling and rolling her eyes
.
“In the olden days!”

Olivia chuckled
.
“You know what they say nowadays, Ann. ‘It is what it is.’”

“
Look at Olivia when she was a little girl
.
And look at this one,”
Davey
said, flipping the pages of the album
.
“This is an incline
.
Is that right, Mrs. Berger?” he asked, looking up at Olivia.

Olivia nodded
.
“That’s right
.
Can you tell your
mother
what that’s called?” she asked,
bending sideways
and pointing
to
one of the photographs
.

Davey grinned. “A streetcar
!
A ‘lectric streetcar! Boy, I sure wish we had streetcars now,” he said, wistfully. “It would be so cool to go up the incline on one. If we still had an
incline, I mean.”

Ann laughed
.
“You sure look like you’ve been having a good time
.
”
She
turned to Olivia
.
“Thanks so much for watching the kids
.
I’m sorry I’m so late
.
Time kind of got away from me.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense
.
How was your first day?”

Ann smiled
.
“It was good
.
I think it’s going to work out
.
I’ll admit, after not working for so long, I was really nervous but it’s not that hard
.
I feel lucky to get this opportunity
.
And, I’m so
grateful I
have you to look after the kids
.
I hope you know how much I appreciate it
.
Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome but don’t you ever worry about these two,” Olivia said, nodding toward Danielle and Davey
.
“
They’re welcome here anytime
.
Ann, you’re a bright, young woman
.
You can do anything you set your mind to
.
I think you underestimate yourself
.
You’re
s
tronger
, more capable,
than you
give yourself credit for
.
”

Ann could feel her face
turning red
.
“Olivia, you’re an angel
.
I don’t know what I’d do without you
.
But you know what, we’d better get going
.
I’m sure
Dani
has homework and
… .”

“Mom, I already did my homework,
”
Danielle
interrupted
, looking up from her book
.
“Can’t we stay a little longer?”

“Yeah, Mommy, I wanna stay,” Davey chimed in.
“Please?”

Ann stood up
.
“I think we’ve taken up enough of Olivia’s time.”

“Please
!
Please
!
Please!” Davey chanted.

Olivia laughed. “Ann, it’s up to you. All I have is time. Why don’t you let them stay
awhile
?
It’ll give you some time to yourself.”

Ann thought for a second.
“Well, if you’re sure …
o
kay.”

“Just
let me know
when you want them home,” Olivia said.

“Yippee!” Davey yelled
.
“We get to stay
!
Will you tell us some more stories?”

Olivia smiled
.
“I think that can be arranged.”

Ann waved good-bye and headed downstairs
.
Before going into her apartment, she stopped in the hall to pick up
her
mail
.
She let herself into the living room, dropped her purse on the coffee table and
sat
down on the sofa
.

“Bill
.
Junk
.
Bill,” she said aloud as she leaned forward and separated the envelopes into neat stacks on the table
.
She picked up the small white envelope with her name neatly typed on it
.
“Love poem. I hope.
” she said,
recalling the
strange
Bible quote she’d gotten the day before
.
She
opened the envelope and
unfolded the
paper
.
It was typed, like the others
.
“
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord
,
… as his fathers had done
… .
2 Kings, 15:9.”