Madam Of The House. Donna Birdsell

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СКАЧАТЬ blade. As a bonus she might be able to sell it on eBay.

      She counted to ten and cleared her mind. She’d handled tougher situations. There had to be a way to come up with some quick cash.

      She’d already taken two ten-thousand-dollar advances on her commission from Belkin-Frye. She couldn’t ask for any more, especially now that Monty was gone.

      She’d sold off all the antiques in the house that were worth anything months ago, so that was a dead end. She’d gotten advances on her credit cards and a second mortgage on their home, going into more debt to pay debt.

      She’d cashed in the retirement account from her first job, selling pharmaceuticals for a big New Jersey drug company. The penalties had killed her, and she’d lost her matching funds, but she’d been desperate.

      “Mom, can we get a puppy?” Brian called to her from the back seat. “Ethan has a puppy.”

      She smiled. “Not right now, buddy. Puppies are a big responsibility. They take a lot of time.” And a lot of money.

      She glanced at Brian in the rearview. He was frowning. “But Ethan has a puppy.”

      “I’m sorry, Brian. But we just can’t do it right now.”

      “But Ethan has a puppy.”

      “Yes. Ethan’s mother is home all the time.”

      “Why aren’t you home all the time?”

      “Because I work, honey. You know that.”

      “You work a lot.”

      “Not enough these days,” she said, mostly to herself. She sighed. “If we got a puppy, wouldn’t you like to be here with it? Maybe we’ll get one when you come home for the summer.”

      He stared out the window.

      Brian wasn’t good with waiting. Didn’t understand the concept, really. To him, anything that wasn’t happening in the present wasn’t happening at all. When he was younger, he used to throw the most awful tantrums, screaming and thrashing when he couldn’t have something the minute he wanted it.

      Ben, and many of their family members, had seen it as Brian having been spoiled. But Cecilia suspected it was something different.

      It was as if her son had no concept of time. He didn’t understand “soon” or “tomorrow” or “later,” or any of the other words that could give him hope. If he wanted a toy or a book or a snack, these words meant nothing. While other children heard promise in these words, Brian only seemed confused and dejected by them.

      In the back seat, Brian started rocking.

      Cecilia resisted the urge to drive straight to the pet store. A puppy wouldn’t fix this. Wouldn’t fix him.

      Experience told her that Brian would soon move on to something else, and that his disappointments would be many, over the weekend. But thankfully none of them would last too long.

      A few minutes later he said, “Did you know there are 512 M&M’s in a one-pound bag?”

      “But this is…was…a two-pound bag,” she said. “How many were in this one?”

      Brian looked out the window for a moment, and said, “One thousand and twenty-four.”

      She smiled and said, “Very good, honey!”

      Meanwhile, she was trying to calculate how much time she’d have to log on the stationary bike to burn off the calories in 1024 M&M’s.

      That was one equation she wasn’t eager to solve.

      The phone was ringing when they walked into the house. Cecilia picked up the cordless in the kitchen. “Hello?”

      “Cece, it’s me.”

      “Dannie?”

      “Yeah. Listen, I need a favor.”

      “Okay. What’s going on?”

      “I need you to—” Cecilia heard screaming in the background. “Wait a second…”

      Cecilia walked back into the hallway, half listening to Dannie yell at Richard for stuffing a waffle into the DVD player.

      Brian stood just inside the door, quiet and unmoving, and for a nanosecond—a dark, regretful nanosecond—she wished Brian would put a waffle in the DVD player, just once.

      She wished he would laugh and play baseball with the neighborhood kids and hug her spontaneously.

      She held her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “It’s okay, honey. You can go up to your room if you want.” She gave him a gentle nudge on the shoulder and picked up his small suitcase, following him up the stairs.

      “All right. I’m back.” Dannie sounded breathless.

      Then again, Dannie always sounded breathless.

      “What do you need?” Cecilia asked.

      “I need someone to take Quincy for a couple of days.”

      “Quincy?” Cecilia ran through Dannie’s kids names in her mind. Quincy wasn’t there. “Who’s Quincy?”

      “My dog.”

      Before Cecilia could say anything, Dannie rushed on.

      “I’ve got to go out of town. It’s an emergency. My mother-in-law is going to take the kids, but she’s allergic to the dog. Or so she says.”

      “I don’t know—”

      “Please, Cece. You’ve always been a dog lover. Quincy is great. You’ll adore him!”

      “I’ll adore him, huh?”

      “Absolutely. And you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was an emergency.”

      Cecilia thought about Brian asking for a puppy. Maybe this would be a good way to see how he would handle an animal in the house.

      “For a couple of days?” Cecilia said.

      “Right. Two, maybe three, tops.”

      “Okay. What the hell. Ben’s coming over for dinner and he hates dogs. Besides, I’ll be home most of the weekend with Brian. Bring him over.”

      “Great! Thank you so much. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

      Cecilia left Brian alone in his room to get reacquainted with his things—which remained exactly as he had left them a month and a half ago when he’d gone off to school—and went back downstairs.

      She dialed Ben’s mother’s number.

      When Ben answered, she said, “Well? Are you coming over?”

      “Why? Was I supposed СКАЧАТЬ