Page 14 of Tangled Memories
“Mom! For real?”
“Well, with her mother’s permission. Ask if Janelle can come home with you after school tomorrow, and we’ll take her home Sunday. And I would like to speak to Mrs. Byers myself.”
Liane’s enthusiasm ebbed. “What about Aunt Nina and Uncle Tully?”
It was Stormy’s moment to impart some confidence. “Not to worry. I’ll handle them. This house belongs to us as much as it does to your Aunt Nina. It’s our home for as long as we need it to be.”
Liane slid off the stool. “I’ll call Janelle right now! Boy, will she be excited. We can do our science projects together. After that, we’re gonna decide on our careers.”
“Your careers?” Stormy swallowed her laugh. “Baby girl, you’re only seven years old.”
“We know that. Mrs. Byers let us watchDora and the Lost City of Gold. We thought about being treasure hunters, but we don’t know where to start. So we’re thinking about becoming chefs. Mrs. Byers lets us watch all of the Chopped Junior episodes. And you can teach us to cook and about spices. Aunt Nina won’t let us in the kitchen.”
Stormy bit her lip. She wished she and Nina were seven-year-olds again themselves, so she could beat the daylights out of her selfish sister. But violence was out. She’d have to be smarter. “Mrs. Byers sounds like a person I’d want to befriend.”
“I like her. She said she knows what kids go through when their mommies are in jail.”
“We’re going to get past all of the hard times, sweetheart. It won’t be easy, but we’ll do it. Now, while you’re on the phone, I’m going for a quick walk on the beach. I’ll latch the front door. Don’t let anyone in.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m not a baby anymore. I know that stuff.”
“Good. I won’t be out of sight of the kitchen window. If you need me, holler.”
Stormy turned the heat beneath the soup to simmer and waited until she heard Liane giggling into the kitchen phone before she slipped into a light jacket and stepped outside.
The storm of the previous evening had moved on its westerly course, coloring the sky an ever deeper mauve. Only a slight breeze soughed across the Atlantic.
Walking along the water’s edge, she kept her gaze out to sea, idly watching brown pelicans skim the water in search of mullet. Few tourists were on the beach. The water yet too cold for swimming. She saw only a pair of senior citizen turtle watchers flagging nests. She waved, and they returned smiles.
Inwardly, however, she was searching for solutions to her problems. Finding work was of the utmost importance. Yet, her floundering relationship with Nina kept rising to the surface. Nina’s contempt for everything Stormy did or said. It was all so out of proportion to reality. And Tully was no help. Her brother-in-law was self-absorbed and, Stormy suspected, rather a bully.
Perhaps before prison, Stormy mused, she had been so enmeshed in taking care of Liane and running the sandwich shop that she had not noticed their behavior. Or when she had, she had attributed Nina’s unhappiness and occasional snide remarks to grief over their parents’ deaths.
Neither of them had time to absorb the suddenness of Mom and Dad dying within a year of each other. Their mother had complained of being tired all the time. Believing she was possibly anemic, she’d finally gone to the doctor. He diagnosed her with acute leukemia, and within weeks, Corrine Maxwell was dead. Ten months later, it had been Nina who found their father slumped over his stamp collection at his desk, dead at sixty-eight of a massive heart attack.
Naïvely, Stormy had expected that their mutual losses would make them grow closer, not apart. But beginning with foolish arguing over the choice of their father’s gravestone, Nina’s antagonism had blossomed and thrived.
“Spectacular sunset, don’t you think?”
Stormy started from her reverie but did not miss a step at the familiar deep voice. “Go away.”
“C’mon. We had a good day today.” Tyler glanced at her face and sighed. “I take that back. We did not have a good day. You didn’t get the job.”
“Gee, why don’t you hire yourself out as super sleuth?”
He chuckled. “I already have. And the business you had with the attorney didn’t go to your liking?”
“Where were you? Camped beneath a window, eavesdropping?”
“You’re broke, aren’t you?”
Stormy remained silent, but she was sure that her face told him everything he wanted to know about her situation.
“So…” he said. “Your back is against the wall. And you can’t get to the stolen money without me knowing it.”
Pride forced her to lift her chin and meet Tyler Mangus’s gaze. “I suppose that gives you immense satisfaction.”
“Where is it? In a safety deposit box? Under your mattress? Hidden in a shoebox?”