I frowned. Like Jesse, Bob was somewhere in his seventies, which could be considered old, I guessed. But he was still spry and had all his faculties. If he’d been dealing with diabetes for any length of time, he was not going to “forget” his meds. What was going on around here?
Coming so soon after Jesse’s “accidental overdose,” Bob’s mishap with a prescription drug was indeed suspicious, but I didn’t say anything to Jane, because she was so upset. I was upset, too. I wondered if Jane might be flashing back to the moment when she first heard about Jesse’s death. If that was the case, I didn’t want her suffering alone.
“I’m coming over,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “I’ll be here.”
Ten minutes later, I walked into Hennessey House and found Stephen and Jane sitting in the living room, commiserating. Jane jumped up and hurried over to greet me. “Oh, Shannon, thanks for coming.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I was planning to call you later. I set up a lunch with Althea for tomorrow and I was hoping you’d come with me. But now with Bob in the hospital, I think we’d better cancel.”
“Yes, we should,” I said. “Do you want me to call her?”
“No, I can do it.” She pressed her hands together and glanced around. I could tell she was on her last nerve.
“Jane, sit down, please?” I said quietly. “You’re entitled to relax once in a while.”
“I’m fine. It helps to keep busy. Let me get you a cup of coffee.”
“No, I’ll grab a cup in the dining room and join you in a second.”
“Okay.”
I really wanted to know what Stephen was up to. Why was he always just there, by Jane’s side, like a new puppy looking for treats? I knew that now wasn’t a good time to dwell on it, but the guy was really starting to bug me.
I sat down with my coffee and tried to smile at Stephen. “I’m really sorry. I know you and your dad are close to Bob.”
“I’m going to miss him,” Stephen whispered. “He was a great guy.”
I frowned at Stephen. “Did he die?”
“Well, no, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“But he could still come out of it,” I insisted. “Don’t write him off just yet.”
Jane clutched her hands together. “Shannon’s right. As long as he’s alive, there’s hope.”
I was familiar with diabetes because my mother had had it. I was too young to know much about it at the time she died, but as I grew up, I did a lot of reading on the disease. I was willing to bet that I knew as much about it as anyone else who didn’t actually suffer from it.
One way Bob could’ve fallen into a coma was if he overdosed on insulin. I was tempted to call the hospital.
“My dad said that he found Bob passed out in his silk boxer shorts,” Stephen said, with a feeble grin. “That’s all he was wearing when he was rushed to the hospital.”
I didn’t find that tidbit of news worth smiling about. Especially when it reminded me that Jesse was dressed the same way when I found him.
“That poor man,” Jane said.
Stephen stared into his coffee mug. “Who knew old Bob was sporting silk boxers all this time? I must admit, silk does feel nice against the skin, although I prefer going commando.”
I exchanged a look with Jane. Did he say stuff like this on a regular basis? Was he nuts? He was socially inept for sure.
But Jane, always the perfect hostess, took a steadying breath and tried to smile. “Silk is wonderful, isn’t it? And if it made Bob happy, where’s the harm?”
Perfect hostess or not, Jane couldn’t possibly be buying in to Stephen’s weirdness, could she? I supposed some people behaved oddly in crisis situations, but discussing fabrics and boxer shorts and—God help us—going commando was a whole new level of bizarre.
*
Later that day, I posed the question to Mac over a couple of bottles of ice-cold beer. “Are boxer shorts a navy thing?”
He looked at me as though I were crazy, and I had to wonder if I was nuts, too. Had I drunk the same Kool-Aid as Stephen and Jane?
“A navy thing?” Mac laughed. “Uh, no. You can wear tighty whities or anything else in the navy if you want to. Uncle Sam’s not all that interested in your underwear.”
“Right, right,” I said, feeling a rush of embarrassment at the conversation I’d started. “Of course not.”
“Is something going on, Shannon? I mean, you’d tell me if you were onto something else, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not.” I frowned at the beer bottle, then gazed at him. “It’s just that Jesse died wearing only his boxer shorts. They were white and cotton, but I guess that’s not relevant. And now Bob was rushed to the hospital wearing only a pair of silk boxers. Just seems weird, that’s all.”
I glanced over and saw him looking at me in precisely the same way I’d been looking at Stephen a few minutes ago.
“Never mind,” I said quickly, waving away the question. “Oh, hey, there’s a game on TV. Want to watch?”
“A woman who loves to watch sports?” Mac grinned. “Count me in.”
*
A few hours later, Jane telephoned. “I spoke to Althea. We’ll schedule a lunch sometime next week.”