The Hand that Rocks the Ladle (18 page)

Much to my relief the kitchen was as empty as Aaron’s heart the day he told me he already had a wife up in Minnesota. There were no pots on the stove, no smells wafting from one of two commercial size ovens.

“Thanks heavens!” I said aloud.

A second later I heard a faint thud. I wouldn’t even have given it a second thought, had it not been followed by cries of distress. I flung the frozen entrees on the kitchen table and raced through the dining room and into the foyer. There, at the base of my impossibly steep stairs, lay Daphne Moregold.

I gasped, but before I could run to her aid, Edwina Moregold came thundering down the stairs, a look of horror on her plump and usually placid face.

“Sis,” she screamed, “are you all right?”

Daphne moaned.

“Sis, speak to me! How bad are you hurt?” Daphne moaned again. I didn’t hear any intelligible words, but apparently Edwina did.

“Your back? Did you say it’s your back?”

“Yes, my back. Ooooooo.”

At that point my heart, which had dropped into my stomach, was being rapidly devoured by gastric juices. This was not the first time I’d encountered a woman prone at the bottom of my stairs. Miss Brown, however, had been dead, and incapable of suing. What’s more, she was already dead when someone threw her down the stairs.

I suppose a reasonable person might ask why, since a tornado demolished the original inn less than a year ago, I would go to the trouble to have a new set of impossibly steep stairs installed? The answer is simple: I’m sentimental. No, I’m not referring to Miss Brown, who resembled a burlap bag of potatoes when she literally hit bottom. I’m talking about the history of the inn. Its integrity, if you will. The inn is the site of my ancestral home, and it was those steep stairs— well, a set just like them—that generations of Yoders, Hostetlers, Kauffmans, and Masts used to get to the second-floor sleeping rooms. Why, once I even thought I saw the ghost of Grandma Yoder standing on those stairs, her face skewered into such a mean look of disapproval, for a second I thought she’d been resurrected from the dead.

One must keep in mind the elevator. Yes, it is rather small, and doesn’t give the smoothest ride in the world, but it is there and available for all guests. And it is free. Therefore, I do not feel in the least bit responsible for those guests who elect to take the stairs. Still, I have a generous and comprehensive insurance policy just in case. Alas, this appeared as if it might be one of those cases.

“I’ll call 911,” I said generously. If my premiums skyrocketed, so be it.

Edwina looked startled. “What’s that?”

“It’s like an emergency rescue service. They’ll get the hospital to send an ambulance out. They even dispatch the police if need be.”

Before I could stop her, Daphne struggled to a sitting position. “There really is no need for that. I’ll be all right.”

“All the same, dear, you shouldn’t move until a trained professional has seen you.”

The twins exchanged glances. Then in a gesture that tugged at the strings of my rapidly shrinking heart, Edwina stroked her sister’s hair.

“You see, Miss Yoder, we neglected to purchase travel insurance, and I’m not sure our U.K. insurance plan covers us here. We operate on rather a different system.”

“Still, your sister needs to be checked out. Tell you what, I have a friend who is a doctor. He’s a heart doctor, but still he’s a doctor. I’ll give him a call and see if he can come over and check you over. He lives right across the road.”

I would have thought the twins would have been grateful—well, Daphne at least. Instead, they appeared annoyed.

“I can manage just fine,” Daphne said. With Edwina’s help she managed to stand. “A little bed rest is all I’ll be needing.”

“Nonsense, dear. I’ll have Dr. Rosen over here in a jiffy.”

“Really, I’m quite fine.” Daphne took a small step forward and winced.

“You see? You’re not fine. You’re in pain. Now don’t move a muscle.” I ran to the phone.

Heaven only knows what Gabe was up to, and why it took him so long to answer. I was beginning to think he wasn’t home, or worse yet, up to no good with the mother of that baby I’d heard. But, and this is based on personal experience, even that shouldn’t take more than the equivalent of ten rings.

“Rosen here,” he finally said.

“Well, it’s about time, dear,” I said crossly. “I thought New Yorkers were known for their speed.”

“What?”

“As in a New York minute. Obviously you were raised elsewhere.”

“Actually, I was raised in Manhattan. But I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Perhaps that makes the difference.”

“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“I was just teasing a little. But I really was born in Bridgeport. Moved to Manhattan when I was three.”

“That’s nice, dear, but I have a situation over here. I could use your help.”

“What kind of situation?”

“A woman fell.”

In the ensuing silence lasting peace came to the Middle East, and Calista Flockhart gained fifty pounds.

“Fell?” he echoed finally. “How?”

“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you mean! But she claims to have fallen down my stairs.”

“And what exactly do you want me to do?”

“Why, check her out of course.”

“Magdalena, I’m a cardiologist, and a nonpracticing one at that.”

“I don’t know about New York City, but here in these parts neighbors help each other out.”

“Well, I’m all for helping a neighbor out, but this sounds more like an official doctor’s visit.”

“Who said anything about official, dear? I wasn’t planning to pay you.”

He laughed. “You’re really something, you know that?”

“Yeah, I’m a scream.”

As if on cue that darn baby started crying in the background. It again! I’d been trying to block that infant out of my mind, because where there’s a baby, there most often is a mother. Although at one point in our fledgling relationship Gabe had stated, in no uncertain terms, that he was unattached, that didn’t necessarily mean that was the case. Just look at Aaron, to whom I had offered the flower of my womanhood. Just a month later I had nothing to show for it but potpourri and a broken heart. Men are capable of lying, you know. Besides, I have ears that can hear corn grow, and I know what I heard.

“What’s that noise?” I demanded.

“What noise?”

“Don’t play games with me, buster. It’s a baby, isn’t it?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And I suppose its mother is there as well? In a manner of speaking?”

“No. I’ve never seen her mother.”

Her? Then an awful thought crossed my mind. “Just whose baby is it, and where did you get her?”

“For the moment that’s my business. But if it will make you feel better, I acquired her legitimately.”

“Is that so? When did you get her?”

“Yesterday.”

I gasped. “Yesterday!”

“Is there an echo on this line?”

Be calm, I told myself. You owe it to Freni and Barbara to not let your feelings for this man get in the way of clear thinking.

“How old is your baby?”

“Eight weeks.”

“Eight weeks?” Even a doctor couldn’t pass an eight-week-old baby off as a newborn. Still, I’ve read in the newspaper where folks have tried things just as stupid. There is the true case of an Ohio woman who kidnapped a newborn boy from the hospital, took him home, and then called paramedics and claimed she had just given birth. It was one thing for the kidnapper to try to explain the neatly tied umbilical chord, but even the dullest paramedic knows that babies are not born circumcised.

“Two months is what I said.”

“Can you prove that?”

“As a matter of fact I can.”

“Why haven’t you mentioned this baby before?”

“It was meant to be a surprise.”

“For whom?”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” I snapped.

He hung up before I could.

When I got back to the Moregold sisters, Daphne was sitting, eyes closed, on the first step. Edwina was sitting beside her sister, her arm around the woman. They both looked like they’d had the joie de vivre knocked right out of them.

“You took an awfully long time on the telephone,” Edwina said quietly. A more sensitive soul might have heard accusation in her voice.

I gave her a warning look. “How’s the patient?” Daphne opened one eye. “I’ve been better. Perhaps you and sis could help me into the lift now. If I could just lie down on my bed, I’m sure it would help a lot.” I reluctantly helped Daphne upstairs and into bed. She moaned and groaned the entire time. I hadn’t heard such pitiful sounds since that day, back in the fifties, when Mama leaned too close to our new washer, the one with an electric clothes wringer, and inadvertently invented the mammogram. At any rate, it seemed to me that the best thing would have been for Daphne to not move, at all, until Gabe had examined her. But what do I know? I’m just a lowly innkeeper on the wrong side of the big pond.

Wouldn’t you know that in helping her sister get into bed, Edwina threw her back out too?

“You what?” I wailed.

It was Edwina’s turn to moan and groan while Daphne explained.

“It happens to us all the time. It’s because we’re identical twins.”

“You throw your backs out all the time?”

“No, this is the first time for backs. But you see, because we’re identical twins, most likely when one of us comes down with something, the other will too.”

“But sprained backs aren’t communicable.”

“Of course they’re not. But sis and I are essentially the same person. We come from the same egg, after all. Our karmas are connected.”

Fortunately the doorbell rang. Just to be on the safe side, in case bad backs—or more likely bad luck— were contagious, I took the elevator down. The model I chose was one of the cheaper ones, and if I should even suffer an accident in it, my next bed will be in heaven.

The doorbell rang again, and again before I could answer it.

“Hold your horses,” I said as I flung it open.

There stood Gabe, a foolish grin across his otherwise handsome face. He was holding what at first looked like a mailbox. You know, the kind set on poles in rural areas. Shaped like a bread box, only bigger. This one, however, didn’t have an arched top, and the lid was wire mesh.

“That’s an odd-looking medical bag, Doctor.”

The grin widened. “It’s not my medical bag. It’s your baby.”

“Little Freni?”

“She’s all yours. Name her what you want.”

I grabbed the stupid-looking box from him and peered inside. “But that’s a kitten!”

“A Siamese kitten. A pure-blooded Chocolate Point. She’s got papers and everything.”

I staggered into the house, not from the weight of the box, but from a curious mixture of relief and bitter disappointment. Had there been a Hostetler baby in the box, it would have meant a successful, if somewhat bizarre end to my search. But I was relieved nonetheless, because the baby I had heard crying was not the product of Gabe’s loins. Not in this life.

“So this is what was making all that noise.”

He nodded. “Siamese cats are notorious for sounding like human infants.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? And why the kitten for me?” Meanwhile the kitten had stuck a little leg through the grid and was trying to bat at my hand. “What’s today?” Gabe asked.

I frowned at his delaying tactic. “Tuesday.”

“What’s the date?”

“July twenty-third.”

“So?”

“So a needle pulling thread?” I don’t listen to much worldly music, but that particular song has good Mennonite lyrics.

“So, tomorrow is our anniversary. I was going to give you the kitten then, but you made it clear you couldn’t wait.”

“What?”

“Face it, Magdalena, you were throwing a hissy fit. Pun intended.”

I waved aside the accusation. “Which anniversary would this be?”

“Why, our three-month anniversary, of course.”

I stared at Gabe, my mouth open so wide, I could well have choked on a wayward robin. He was right. We had indeed met in April. I remembered that because of Susannah’s wedding. I had just met Gabe and invited him as my guest. But I for one hadn’t kept track of the exact date. But Gabe had! How terribly romantic! Aaron’s idea of romance had been to take off his socks before he came to bed.

“Uh—uh—of course, our three-month anniversary.”

“Well?”

“Well, your present isn’t quite ready,” I wailed. “After all, you did say it was tomorrow.”

“What I meant was, how do you like your present? Little Freni is what you named her, right?”

At that very moment the kitten was successful in batting my hand. She did so with a full set of untrimmed claws. I yelped and nearly dropped the carrier.

“She wants out. Let her out, Magdalena. Let her get to know you.”

What fools we were: he wanting to impress me with a gift, and me in such shock at receiving it that neither of us had a thought for those two poor bedridden gals upstairs. Oh, well, such is love—not that we were in love, mind you, but perhaps the barest beginnings of love. In deep like, as it were.

I let Freni out of her cage. Unlike her namesake, she was a lithe and beautiful creature. Pale cream body, chocolate face and ears, chocolate boots, and a chocolate tail. Her eyes were even bluer than Aaron’s had been. She rubbed against my ankles and purred.

I bent to pet her. “Ooh, youms is so sweet,” I heard myself say. “Yes, you is, yes, you is.”

Little Freni purred louder, sounding for all the world like Big Freni did when she snored. I petted some more, and she purred even louder. Then suddenly, in the throes of her purring frenzy, Little Freni snagged the front of my dress with her claws, and before I could stop her, climbed up the front panel, all the way to the top button. Hesitating only a second or two, she poked her pink nose under the collar facing and crawled in, straight into my gaping bra cup. A quick tickling turn, and she was settled in, her left ear barely noticeable above the V of my neckline. And lest you think there is no room in a bra for an eight-week-old kitten—well, there is, if you forget to use tissues that day.