The Four Seasons. Mary Monroe Alice
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I suggested that to her on the phone but she complained and reminded me how long it’d been since she’d been home and told me how much luggage she had and so on and so on. Get this. She wanted to be picked up by a family member—at the gate!”
His shook his head. “And you relented….”
“Who doesn’t with Jilly?”
“Well, even you can’t order a blizzard around.”
Birdie chuckled then pursed her lips, considering her options. Her first priority was to get to Evanston and make certain the funeral arrangements she’d spent hours—days—on the phone making were going smoothly. She rested her hands on the counter and leaned against them. “God, this is going to be a nightmare. Who knows what to expect from her? Do you remember the scene Jillian made at Mother’s funeral?”
He shrugged. “Jillian lives to make a scene. I don’t see what the commotion is about. She’ll arrive in a state, stay long enough to make another scene, then leave and we won’t see her for another ten years. God willing.”
“I don’t see why you dislike her so. She’s never done anything to you.”
“She doesn’t have to. It’s what she does to you that makes me dislike her.”
“What do you mean?” Birdie replied, genuinely surprised. Dennis never made any pretense over the fact that he didn’t like her more glamorous sister.
“She puts you on edge,” he replied, looking Birdie directly in the eye. “She makes you feel somehow less.” He lowered his gaze. “You’re not the same whenever she’s around.”
Birdie wanted to tell him that was because he was never the same when she was around. Dennis had dated Jilly for a brief period in high school, something Birdie never felt comfortable about. Neither of them ever mentioned it, but sometimes, when he didn’t think anyone was looking, she caught him gazing at Jilly with an odd expression on his face. She’d wondered if the gaze was merely speculative, or, and she shuddered to think this, if it was lust she saw under his heavy, hooded eyes.
“If she makes me feel less,” she replied, loading ice blocks into the cooler, “it’s only in the arena of beauty. Let’s face it. Jilly is gorgeous.”
“So are you.”
“No, I’m not.” She wasn’t being coy. Birdie knew that age and the additional twenty pounds that crept on over the past decade had not improved her already large frame. In the looks department, nothing she had could compare to Jilly. Birdie’s eyes were pale blue, not a vivid green like Jilly’s. All she had of the famous red Season hair were a few red highlights in the dull brown. Worst of all, she had her father’s nose. He told her to be proud of the aristocratic though slightly askew family inheritance, and in fact, she was. But it did nothing to enhance her beauty.
“You are to me.”
When he said things like that Birdie’s heart did a quick flip and she felt a sudden gush of love for him. She turned and busied her hands rinsing a few cups in the sink, flustered. “That’s sweet. But really, Dennis, I’m over forty years old and a success in my own right. I don’t need to pretend I’m beautiful for my self-esteem.”
Dennis just shook his head sadly.
She turned off the water and made a snap decision. “We’ll skip the airport. I’ll call Rose and see what else can be arranged. But we’ll still have to leave early in this storm. Where were you, anyway?” she asked, turning to face Dennis. “You said you’d be home by twelve.”
“What time is it now?”
“It’s almost three.”
He shrugged and raised his brows in a gesture of innocence. “I had a lot to do to leave town for several days. Midterm grades need to be averaged before spring break. Then there was an emergency meeting with the chairman.”
He loosened his tie and tugged it off with a frustrated yank. “I got out as quickly as I could.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that I’ve got a lot to do, too? While you were arranging your schedule, I was doing the same plus shopping for the trip, packing up and taking the dog to the kennel.”
He turned his back to her and grabbed the beer bottle from the counter along with the stack of mail. “Well, we can’t all be as efficient as you.”
She felt the sting of his words as she watched him lean casually against the counter and sift through the mail as though he had all the time in the world. He could be oblivious to everyone’s needs but his own, she thought. Hannah may not have inherited his lean physique, but she had certainly inherited his temperament.
“Where’s Hannah?” he asked, as though reading her mind.
“She’d better be upstairs packing. Would you go up and check on her? I’ve asked her to pack for two days and she hasn’t done it. Now we’ve run out of time and if she’s not done I guess I’ll have to do it.”
“No you don’t,” he replied, looking up from his mail. “If she leaves something out, then she’ll have to live with it.”
“Oh, Dennis, don’t be ridiculous. If I don’t get after her who knows what she’ll wear?”
“Then she’ll be embarrassed. You’re the one who’s always preaching about natural consequences.”
Birdie fumed. She knew he was right, but she just couldn’t bring herself to allow her daughter to be poorly turned out for her sister’s funeral. “Whenever someone sees a poorly dressed child, or walks into a messy house, they never blame the father. It’s always the mother who’s thought of as a slacker.”
“Who cares what anyone thinks?”
“I care!”
“You might as well relax and let her be. She’s fifteen. She’s not going to listen to anything you say, anyway.”
She put her hands up in an arresting position, cutting him off. “We’re not going to get into this right now. I’ve simply too much to do. Could you please just go upstairs and finish your own packing without this big discussion? I already packed your dark blue suit for the funeral. Just pick out some casual clothes. That’s all you have to do.”
“You never like what I pick out, anyway, so why not finish it yourself?” he muttered, but he shuffled up the stairs, anyway.
She bit back a retort and turned on her heel to head for the phone. If she didn’t get some space between them quickly the fuse they’d lit would explode. Lately, anytime they were in a room together it was like putting a match near a powder keg. The tension had really started heating up again in the past few days. Ever since Merry’s death.
Birdie paused to think, Was it only four days ago that Merry had died?
It was a night much like any other night. There had been no premonition of trouble to come. Birdie had always thought she would somehow sense when a loved one was dying, especially someone as close as a sister. She was a physician, after all. She expected that she’d develop some intuition as to when death was imminent. Apparently not, she thought, chagrined. She hadn’t suspected a thing as she crept under the sheets, yawned and murmured good-night to her husband before falling into a deep, undisturbed sleep.
The call from Rose woke her just after 11:00 p.m. Merry’s lungs had filled again with the current bout of flu and she was having trouble breathing. Complications weren’t unusual for Merry. Her lungs had been damaged as a child, making her a high-risk patient. Her doctor had upped her medication and was on his way but Rose wanted to call Birdie for help.
Birdie had risen promptly, dressed, made a pot of coffee and placed a call to her colleague to cover her morning appointments in case she was late getting back. It didn’t take long, not more than forty minutes, to get on the road. When she knocked on the door of the Season family home not even four hours later, Birdie had known instantly that she was too late. Rose