Ladybird cocked a brow, lifted her lips slightly in triumph, and gave Max a twinkle-eyed look.
“Who is it, Jada?” The voice was low, soft, in keeping with mourning status, but Max recognized it from her dream. Bethany’s mother, Virginia.
“It’s Mrs. Long from next door.”
Max stepped over the threshold behind Ladybird. The house was the mirror image of Bethany’s, a small front hall, stairs to the right, coat closet on the left, and the living room straight ahead. Heavy gold velvet curtains closed against the afternoon sun, the room was lit by a single three-way lamp on it dimmest setting.
“Oh, do come in, Ladybird. Thank you so much for coming.” Virginia, ensconced in a wingback chair, held her hand out like royalty. Max almost expected to see Ladybird curtsey before her.
While Ladybird’s hair shone with blue highlights, Virginia’s was an unrelieved steel gray. She’d already donned a black knit mourning dress, with an onyx cameo at the throat and a white lace handkerchief tucked up her sleeve. She was a handsome woman simply because of her bearing, chin held high and slightly to the left, hand extended, impeccably dressed.
Despite her outward calm, misery misted the woman’s brown eyes, and Max knew somewhere in the faultless manner lurked the woman who had coaxed Bethany from the closet and made her favorite desserts.
Ladybird, of course, did no such thing as curtsey. She wasn’t anybody’s lady-in-waiting. “We’ve brought you a lasagna, Virginia,” as said lasagna was passed from Virginia to Jada like a baby with a dirty diaper. “We know you can’t even begin to think of cooking at a time like this. It’s so awful. I can only imagine what you must be going through. What have the police told you? Anything?”
What did friends, neighbors, family usually say when someone’s loved one died violently? Max couldn’t say from experience; she’d snubbed her friends, her coworkers, and her family was long gone. No one had gotten a chance to say a thing to her.
Ladybird, she was sure, was atypical, nor did she allow Virginia to answer. “Please do meet my future daughter-in-law, Max Starr.”
Max, for her part, stared dumbfounded at the tiny woman’s big words. An instant later, sanity kicked in. To get more information, best to let Virginia and her daughter think Max was the harmless fiancé tagging along at this point. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m very sorry about your daughter.” The words sounded trite, inhibited. Grieving made her uncomfortable. Max offered her hand anyway.
Virginia Spring’s grip was strong, warm, and dry. “Thank you, dear. I’m so glad to meet you.” Then her lipstick smile faltered. Something glittered at the corner of one eye. “I’m so glad to meet you? That sounds rather strange, doesn’t it?” She put a dainty hand to her mouth. “I don’t believe I’m supposed to say that.”
Strange? That in times of crisis people fell back on the instincts at their core? For Virginia, that seemed to be her innate politeness. Max didn’t let go of the hand in hers and held the woman’s troubled gaze. “You don’t need to worry, Mrs. Spring, you say whatever you have to say and to hell with how it sounds. The rest of us will understand.”
There was a moment of silence. Like prayers during church. The kind of silence in which the proverbial pin-drop could be heard.
In the kitchen, silver clinked on china. The refrigerator door closed with a soft whoosh. Leather soles squeaked on linoleum.
Max wondered who the third occupant of the house was. On the heels of the thought, the hair rose at her nape.
Virginia clasped Max’s hand in both of hers. The chill of the moment faded in the warmth of that grasp. How many times had Bethany felt the stroke of Virginia’s hand, pushing back her hair, drying her tears? The sensation was almost tactile.
“Thank you, my dear. I do mean that. I think you understand. Won’t you sit?” She indicated the gold velveteen sofa beside her. “Ladybird, please. I can’t believe I’ve kept you both standing.”
They both sat on the ungiving velvet couch the same color as the draperies, Ladybird’s shoes dangling several inches off the floor. The furnishings were of the uncomfortable variety, delicate looking, murder on the buttocks. The spindly legs of the mahogany coffee table looked as if they’d snap like twigs.
“Jada, be a dear, we’ll need two more cups of tea.” Virginia turned back. “You will stay for tea, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Ladybird chirped abruptly, as if she thought Max might have other ideas.
The kitchen door bounced open. “Here’s your tea, Virginia.” A man spoke, advanced through the dining room past the oversized rosewood table and chairs. Max gathered a thousand impressions.
Refined graying hair, yellow sweater over a white polo, khaki slacks, brown tasseled loafers, a cup balanced in his hand. Black eyes on her. Lips raised in the slightest of smiles. As if he’d listened at the door and known Max was in the room. As if he’d expected Max to be there. Maybe even willed her to come.