Family Affair (40 page)

When she got inside, Gitana was asleep on the couch. She covered her up with a pink and blue fleece throw that said "My mommy's the best" on the front. The dogs stayed outside and romped. Chase sat down at the kitchen table and made a list of all the things they would need to take with them to her mother's.

It was a horrid reality, but it would have to be done. Jacinda's house wasn't an option. Chase knew she'd kill Graciela inside a week and besides Jacinda's house was too small for all of them and sleeping in the living room with the relic cupboard creeped her out. For Bud, she would prostrate herself to her mother.

When the roads cleared and they could get out two days later, Chase took Gitana to the orchid nursery. She was worried about the effect of the snow on the greenhouses. Nora would meet her and Gitana was to stay put until Chase got back from town.

"Why do you have to go to town?" Gitana asked, as they pulled out of the driveway and before Chase, with great effort, got the gate open. She hopped back in the car.

"I need to get some composition books and I want to get some emergency supplies. I read on the Internet what we should have."

"Like?" Gitana put her seat belt on and adjusted the seat cushion that Chase had purchased for her for lower back pain.

Chase peered down the road which contained one set of tire tracks. She put the Hummer in four wheel drive low. "Candles, water, medications, canned goods, etcetera." She took a deep breath and set out, telling herself it's a Hummer, she can handle anything.

"Chase, it was a fluke storm. The news said the Sandia Mountains haven't had this much snow in fifty-nine years."

"Which means everything is out of whack and out of whack is an inconsistent state of being thus anything is possible." She exhaled. They'd made it to the county road. First obstacle overcome.

By the time Chase got to the greenhouse, clouds once again covered the sky and the radio forecast announced another cold front was on its way. "Fucking great!" Chase snarled.

"Get lots of soup," Gitana said as Chase helped her out of the car. She was so bundled up, at Chase's behest, that she resembled a two-year-old with an overprotective parent.

"Do not leave here. I mean it," Chase said.

"I promise," Gitana said, holding up two fingers in homage to the Girl Scout pledge of honor.

As she drove into town, it started to snow but only lightly. She did pick up office supplies at OfficeMax, three black and white marbled composition books, a cartridge of black ink for her Epson 2000 and three packets of number five millimeter mechanical pencil lead. Once she had gone to Mazadan with Gitana and forgotten to bring an extra pad. It was awful. She'd had to write on the back side of every page and the whole thing was a mess to straighten out later. She vowed then never to be caught padless again.

Then she went to Smith's. It was confusion and crowds like something out of New Orleans and the broken levees extravaganza. She grabbed the last two gallons of water, a case of tomato soup and two boxes of Saltines. She raced through the self-checkout before she had a panic attack brought on by claustrophobia. She hurried to the Hummer and sped out of the parking lot like she was pursued by goblins.

Getting across town was no better. According to the radio, Albuquerque didn't have enough snowplows. This meant that all secondary streets would go unplowed until the major arteries had been cleared. The schools had been closed down and people were urged to remain at home if possible. Chase clicked off the radio and thundered through the snow toward the Banter residence.

She pulled the Hummer through the iron gates of her mother's house. The manicured gardens all looked the same—the snow giving them the air of homogeneity. She parked in the drive, walked up the steps which had been shoveled, but noted that the Hummer tracks were the only ones in the driveway. Chase hoped this meant her mother was at home.

She really wished she didn't have to do this, but she had no option. She let herself in and crept back to the kitchen to find Rosarita—the compass in her mother's house. Rosarita always knew what her mother was up to, how she was feeling, and whether she was in the mood for a chat. She slunk into the kitchen where Rosarita was preparing lunch. She was making grilled cheese sandwiches or rather panini as Stella referred to them. In this case, they were reuben paninis and Rosarita was heating the sauerkraut with obvious disdain.

"I thank God, we do not have this stuff in my country." She must have been talking to herself because Chase startled her.

"Oh, mija, you scared me." She gave Chase a hug and then pulled back. "What is wrong?" She stared hard into Chase's face as if the secret would be revealed there.

"Nothing. Everything is fine."

"Oh, blessed be the Virgin." She put her hands together in supplication.

"I need to talk to my mother about us maybe staying here until the baby is born—you know the weather and all." Chase waited for her reaction.

"Oh, yes. I think that's a very good idea. Very.. .prudent."

Chase liked when Rosarita learned a new word and the reverence with which she used it, carefully like it was a Royal Doulton teacup that must be cherished and respected for its value.

"I'm going to ask her."

"She's in her office, working, working very hard. She works all the time." She shook her head with gravity and then poured Chase a cup of black, thick as oil coffee. "Sumatra, very strong." She got the half and half out of the fridge.

Chase poured until the black tar became a milk chocolate color. "In her office?"

"Si."

First off, her mother didn't have an office and second, she didn't have a job.

Rosarita seemed to comprehend Chase's apparent confusion. "The old nursery. Now it's all fancy. You'll like it."

Chase nodded, took her coffee and made her way down the hall. The nursery had been hers until she moved upstairs into a larger and more remote room with its own bathroom. Her mother had never done anything with the nursery other than strip the sheets and shut the door as if that chapter of their lives was finished and needed no further consideration.

She stood in the hallway, looking in. All fixed up nice was right, Chase thought. The walls were painted a shade of mocha. The room was filled floor to ceiling with cherry bookshelves that were actually full of books rather than the bric-a-brac she'd seen on HGTV where expensive bookcases were installed in the "library" but contained precious few books. Her mother was ensconced behind an impressive mahogany desk, wearing aquamarine half-moon spectacles and poring over a thick hardbound manual. She looked like she should have been a professor at Hogwarts going over a lesson plan for an incantations class. Behind her was another smaller desk with an iMac laptop poised on Google.

"What's all this?" Chase said.

Her mother looked up, quickly recovered from her surprise and announced, "It's my new office. Do you like it?"

Chase hadn't meant the room but rather her mother's activity. Still to be polite she said, "It's very nice, downright posh." It made her writing studio look like a pit of cast-off furniture. "But what exactly are you doing?"

"It's my new business venture and these are its accoutrements." Stella behaved as if she were a venture capitalist and this "new venture" were one of many.

"Which is?" Chase asked. Her eyes wandered to the bookcases and took in the titles. Where had all these books come from? Most of the titles were literary—a complete set of Jane Austen, War and Peace, Wuthering Heights as well as many other classics. Had her mother read them all? If she had she was extremely well-read, an intellectual powerhouse.

"A private detective. Peggy and I are starting a business. I'm studying for the exam. I've passed my firearms test and got a conceal carry permit."

"You've got a gun?" Now, Chase was alarmed.

"A nine-millimeter Glock, to be exact."

"I see." Chase felt like Dr. Robicheck trying to connect the dots and determine if the patient was a nut job or not.

Her mother must have read her mind. "I'm not crazy. This is something I'm interested in and we've already had calls. See, here's our business card. We've notified our clients that we are not currently licensed but will be shortly. Most don't mind. They feel comfortable with women."

"Because they are women?"

"Yes. We're doing cheating spouses at the moment, but I expect we'll branch. It's very lucrative. After all, how much is a divorce settlement based on adultery worth?"

Chase sat in a chair across from her mother. "That's really cool. I'm impressed." She studied the business card—I-Spy Detective Agency. It had a silhouette of a person dressed in a trench coat and a fedora encased in a large eyeball. "I like the graphics."

"Peggy did it. Addison helped. She's a smart kid. She reminds me a lot of you when you were a child."

Chase missed Addison. She was busy doing the scenery for the Thanksgiving Pageant at school so Chase hadn't been able to see her.

"So what brings you to town? I didn't think with all the snow you'd come in. They were saying on the news that there hasn't been a storm like this for fifty-nine years."

"I know. That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Chase fingered the edge of the oak office chair.

"Snow?" Stella raised her eyebrow.

"Indirectly. They closed the freeway this time."

"That's right. You can't stay up there. What if you got stuck when Gitana goes into labor and can't get to the hospital?"

Both of them looked out the window. It had started to snow again.

"You should come stay here. She's due in a month or less. Nora can take care of the greenhouse and Gitana can rest up. It'll do her good. The last month of pregnancy is absolute hell. We'll put the queen size guest bed in your old room and turn the den into an office for you. We'll get a router for the Internet so you'll have access." Her mother sat back and nodded like she was checking things off her mental list. "I mean, if that's all right with you."

"That's what I came to ask you." She didn't exactly look at her mother when she said this.

"You did?" Her mother sounded incredulous.

It was odd to be on the same wavelength, Chase diought. "I'll board the dogs."

Her mother looked affronted. "Nonsense. They hate the kennel. They can stay here."

"Mom..." They were both startled. Chase hadn't called her that since she was six. Chase tried again, "Mom..." This time it came out better. "They're holy terrors. Remember how they plowed you down at the barbeque?"

"That was an accident."

"They'll destroy the yard," Chase countered.

"I have gardeners. Besides, it's winter and everything is dormant and at the moment covered with snow. You can help Rosarita with cleanup. Your house always looks good so you obviously manage. Chase, the dogs are part of the family. We'll get through it."