Unfinished Muse (14 page)

I’d kind of expected she wouldn’t be home.
After all, people had to go out to work, right? Nope. Missy was a
stay-at-home mom. I could tell from the empty baby swing in the
living room and the tired face of my client. She was pretty in a
washed-out, I-used-to-have-time-for-myself way. Her golden hair was
pulled up in a messy bun that poked out one side, and her oversized
T-shirt looked like it had spit up on one shoulder.

She sat on the living room floor staring at
a pile of plastic shopping bags filled with paper, string,
stickers, and other things I couldn’t see.

Missy appeared to have raided the craft
store of every scrapbooking item they had, and she didn’t know
where to start. I recognized the overwhelmed expression. She’d
overdone it before she’d even begun.

I’d done that so many times, I’d lost
count.

Glancing around for a good spot, I settled
on a love seat covered in what I hoped was clean laundry. Hard to
tell, since it wasn’t folded. It didn’t smell, though.

Missy folded her arms across her chest and
glared at the bags as if daring them to make her unpack them.

I blew a medium-sized Thought Bubble at her.
“First step is to get organized, honey. You have to lay it all
out.” I blew a few more bubbles. “You can do this. Little
bites.”

She gave a weary sigh and opened the first
bag. Out came package after package of colored and printed paper.
She stacked them together on the coffee table and went for another
bag. Next came piles of stickers and alphabet letters. Puffy
cutouts and lacy decals. The third bag held four different hole
punches in different shapes, three pairs of fancy scissors, and a
straight-edged paper trimmer. The last bag was filled with several
types of glue, six colors of twine, and a variety of double-sided
tapes and dispensers.

I was appalled. No wonder she was
overwhelmed. She’d spent hundreds of dollars on supplies for a
craft she’d never tried before. She was destined to fail.

This crazy woman was my soul mate.

Once Missy had everything lined up on the
table, she lost her momentum again. I hated to pressure her into
opening everything. She wouldn’t be able to take it back if she
did. But until she had a sense of order, she wouldn’t be able to
get going on the craft itself. I knew this from experience. Also, I
couldn’t let her return it. My career success depended on her
crafting success.

I chuckled at the irony. I’d thought I’d be
the worst possible choice to be a Muse, but I had life experience
an organized, type-A personality could never understand. I
understood failure and how a person got herself there.

The next bubble was accompanied by the
strong thought that she should open all her tools and lay them out.
Get rid of the packaging and maybe check out some of the paper.

She tore through the plastic and cardboard
for the various cutting and sticking items, threw away the trash,
then sat down in front of her workspace. She still didn’t appear
ready to start cutting and pasting stuff—and I honestly didn’t know
how to do any of that—but she didn’t have that defeated look to her
anymore. Without my prompting, she opened a package of thick paper
and fanned the pages across the table. The colors and patterns all
complemented each other, and she chose a few to hold up next to
each other and compare.

She nodded to herself. “This looks good.”
She reached under the table and pulled a photo from a box filled
with them. A smiling bride and groom looked back at her. “What do
you think? Will you look good against these colors?” She glanced at
the clock and shrugged. “But not now. Cassie will be up any
minute.”

She returned the photo, then stacked her new
supplies neatly together inside the photo box. I didn’t think it
would all fit, but she got it. As if on command, the second she
closed the box, a baby cried from the next room.

“Well. I guess we’re done for today.” I rose
from the loveseat and stretched. “Wish we could’ve gotten more
done, but I feel good about it. How about you?”

Missy didn’t answer. She left the room and
came back with a tiny person with blue eyes and wispy blonde hair.
They disappeared into the kitchen.

“I’ll let myself out,” I yelled over my
shoulder. I went through the door and back to my car, wondering if
talking to myself was going to be my only source of companionship
in the future.

And also wondering if maybe it was what I
deserved.

Chapter 11

A week had gone by since the last time I’d tried to
pry my identity out of my mother. It seemed like a good idea to
give it another try. Especially after the Human Resources lady made
it seem so important.

For one thing, what was the
upstairs
cafeteria
if the new one I was using wasn’t it? If I found out
who my father was, would my coffee come in ceramic cups instead of
paper? Whatever the difference was between Legacy and Lost, I could
use the higher pay and better benefits.

Still. She kind of made it seem ominous.
Like being a Legacy was a protection I’d regret not having.
Certainly, it would be nice if I didn’t have to fear being sent to
the Underworld if I failed at my job.

But maybe I was reading too much into it.
More money would be welcome, regardless.

I knocked on Mom’s door, then went inside
without waiting. She wasn’t in the living room, so I searched the
rest of the house, finally ending at the back door to the kitchen.
From my vantage point on the wooden deck, I could see her shadow
moving around inside the greenhouse.

Before I had a chance to walk out there, the
greenhouse door slammed open and she ran out, barefoot, waving her
arms in the air. If it had been anyone else, I’d have been
alarmed.

But no. It was my mom. Cora Greene. Even
before her mind had started slipping a little, she’d been
weird.

So, I waited and watched. She came around
the corner of the greenhouse, flapping her arms, whirling around a
few times, then running full tilt to the other side of the
building. I watched her do it three times before she slowed.

I walked down the steps and waited for her
to return on her fourth circuit.

She saw me and stopped, her chest heaving
from exertion. “Wynter. Hello. I’m so glad you’re here.” She bent
over with her hands on her knees while she caught her breath.

I lowered my head to look her in the eye.
“Are you okay?”

She waved her hand at me. “I’m fine. Fine.
Just got a little winded.” After a moment her breathing returned to
normal and she straightened. “That’s better. I didn’t realize I was
so out of shape.”

I touched her sleeve. “What were you doing,
exactly?”

She held her arms out. “I accidentally
sprayed myself with the hose. I was trying to dry my clothes
out.”

I stared at her without blinking. I had no
words. Nothing I could say seemed appropriate.

She didn’t wait for a response and linked
her arm through mine. “Come inside. I’ll make you some lemonade,
and we’ll talk about that new boyfriend of yours. Have you had
dinner?”

I sighed. She’d keep asking if I didn’t
answer. “No boyfriend, Mom. We broke up.”

She patted my hand. “He’ll come crawling
back, honey. You’ll see. Men like that can’t stay away from women
like us. How about the bank? Did you get the promotion, yet?”

Most of the time I spent visiting my mother,
she aggravated me with her weird behavior and her lack of truthful
answers about where I came from. But more and more, I was worried.
Her short-term memory lapses were less eccentricity and more a
potential medical problem. Getting Mom to go to a doctor was nearly
impossible though. She preferred her unguents and tonics to Western
medicine. She didn’t trust doctors.

I’d have to keep a closer eye on her.

We drank lemonade, ate leftovers of a
vegetable and quinoa casserole she had in the fridge, and talked
about my new job. I had to be careful not to mention my job title
or the name of the company I worked for, but she didn’t ask. I
described my clients and told her about how I was helping to
motivate them.

She chuckled. “That’s perfect for you.
You’ve always been good at telling other people how to do stuff.”
She graciously didn’t mention how I lacked that ability with
myself. “Are you meeting lots of new friends?”

I shrugged and chased a mung bean around my
plate with my fork. “I don’t interact with a lot of work people.
Mostly, I’m out in the field.”

“But surely you’ve met a few people.” She
reached over, picked up the slippery bean between her fingers, and
stuck it on my fork. “You’re not being yourself, are you?”

I shrugged and ate the bean. “I’m trying,
Mom.”

She smiled, as if I’d told her I’d won Miss
Congeniality at the prom. “Well, then. You’ll succeed.” She stacked
our plates. “I think I’ve got some appleberry pie in there. Let me
check.”

While she busied herself cutting perfect
triangles of apple-raspberry pie, I considered what she’d said. I
did need to be less…me. I could have walked the length of the
office and met all those people having birthday cake. I had phone
numbers for three really nice people I’d met in training. But I’d
made no effort. I needed to be less like myself.

But not knowing exactly who I was had become
part of the problem.

“Mom?”

“Mmm?” She dropped a generous dollop of
homemade whipped cream on top of the pie.

I paused, saying a silent prayer to whatever
god ruled truth. “Will you tell me about my dad?”

She stood for a minute, wiggling the whipped
cream into a decorative swirl, then quietly put down the spoon she
was using and brought the plates to the table. “Why is it so
important, Wynter? Aren’t I enough?”

My heart squeezed in my chest. “It’s not
that, Mom. You’ve been a great parent. You raised me by yourself,
and I’ve never needed anything. I just wish…” I stopped, wondering
what exactly I wanted from this conversation. If I were being
honest with myself, I’d have to admit it had nothing to do with pay
grades and better cafeterias. “I just want to know who I am.”

She sighed and looked me in the eye. “The
truth is, my darling, I didn’t really know your father very well. I
didn’t want you to know the truth because I didn’t want you to
think less of me.”

I frowned and placed my hand over hers.
“Nothing in your past could make me think badly of you, Mom. I
don’t expect you to be perfect. I’ve made too many of my own
mistakes to judge.”

She flipped her hand over to hold mine. Her
eyes were filled with sadness. “I used to be married, a long time
ago.”

My eyebrows rose, and I started to speak,
but she stopped me.

“No. He wasn’t your father. I cheated on him
with a man I barely knew. And when I found out I was pregnant, I
ran away rather than face my husband.” She dropped her voice to a
whisper. “He had a terrible temper.”

“That’s why we moved around so much when I
was a kid?”

She nodded. “I ran away, and we’ve been
running ever since.”

I put my arms around her and hugged her.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.”

She hugged me back, then pulled away, her
expression confused. “Why on earth is my shirt wet?”

~*~

By the time I got home, it was well after dark. I
trudged into the apartment through the front door, dropped my keys
and purse on the table, and went to the kitchen for a glass of
water. Phyllis was on the window ledge, basking in the
moonlight.

“How was your day, dear? Get a lot done?
Make new friends? What’d you have for lunch?” She sounded genuinely
interested, as if staying home alone all day wasn’t much fun. I
guessed it probably wasn’t.

I shrugged. “The day had its ups and downs.
I have two clients now.”

“Already?” Her leaves shivered in
excitement. “They must think you’re doing a good job to already
give you more responsibility.”

My voice was thick with sarcasm. “Yeah. I’m
sure that’s it.”

“Don’t you think you’re doing a good job?”
One of her leaves dropped in the sink.

I sighed. “I think I’m doing the best I
can.” I touched the dirt in her pot. “You feel a little thirsty.” I
ran water in a glass and poured some into her soil, then drank the
rest. “I had dinner with Mom tonight.”

“Wonderful! How was she?”

“Troubling.” I refilled my glass while I
thought about how to tell my houseplant what was bothering me.
“Phyllis, you saw Mom last week. You saw how…absent-minded she is,
right?”

“I did, yes.”

“Do you think I should worry? Do I need to
intervene?”

“What do you mean, dear? Like put her away
or something?” Her leaves went still.

“No. Yeah. I don’t know. She’s getting
worse. I’m worried that I should do something. Should she be living
alone?”

“Oh, I don’t think you have anything to
worry about just yet. She’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.”

She sounded so sure of herself. But I still
wasn’t convinced. Who makes health decisions for their parents
based on the advice of their houseplants? Maybe I should ask a
ficus for a second opinion.

My lip twitched, but I stopped myself from
laughing.

Phyllis wasn’t fooled. “What’s so
funny?”

“Nothing.” I glanced out the window. “Did
the neighbor come out naked again today? What did I miss?”

The silver-painted tires were gone from the
courtyard. Instead, a pile of wooden planks sat off to the side
with a half-finished wooden box next to it. It looked as if he had
a new project, and it wasn’t finished yet.

Phyllis brushed the back of my hand with a
branch. “I don’t know what that boy is building, but he’s been at
it for days. I think the smaller projects are part of one big
thing.”

“But what is it?” I looked away and put my
glass in the sink.