Free Philly Stakes by Gillian Roberts Page B

represented action, a project and more heat, so even though she didn’t visibly react, I fixed the logs and lit them.
    Then I waited for a lead. Eventually, I began to fear that we would sit silently through the new year. “You wanted to talk,” I reminded her gently.
    She blinked, inhaled, then slowly deflated as the air escaped.
    I smiled encouragingly.
    “Laura told you,” she finally said. Her eyes filled. She clenched her hands. “I know she did.”
    I admitted nothing. I didn’t know what the mother-daughter relationship was, aside from the sorry scene at the Christmas party. Perhaps this was the person who had convinced Laura that she was innately bad. I waited for the point.
    “Have you told anyone else?” she gasped out, and when I shook my head, her relief was overwhelming. “Because she—she gets confused.” Her breathing eased, some anxiety dissipating. “Sometimes she isn’t sure if she dreamed something or imagined it or did it.” Her eyes were large and dark gold, the color of good Scotch whisky, but rimmed in red. “I thought she needed help about that, somebody to talk to, a professional, but Alexander…” She slumped into silence.
    Her brief burst of energy seemed over. “She’s never seen anyone?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “I thought when she ran away, or after the fire—the first one… But he wouldn’t, he—it was an accident. She didn’t mean to, but she was so upset, all the time…” The first fire. I had tried to forget Laura’s history as a suspected arsonist.
    I went in search of tissues.
    “And I was…” She still faced my chair as if unaware that I had vacated it. “I didn’t… I knew something wasn’t right. She was such a bright, happy child and then…” She accepted a tissue and blew her nose. I settled back in.
    “Prying quacks, he called them. Thought it was shameful, getting that kind of help. He’d even get angry at television shows if they had psychiatrists helping people. Turned them right off.”
    The doctor’s appointment the day before had probably been Alice’s first session with a psychiatrist. Alexander had to die before she could start to heal. Maybe she’d come calling for both my silence about Laura and validation of her seeking therapy. “Your husband was wrong,” I said. “It’s smart and important to get help.”
    Who was I to put the stamp of approval on anything, and who was she to look so grateful and surprised when I did so? It was becoming obvious that Santa Claus had preferred to walk all over his family instead of his lush carpets. Both Laura and Alice were almost mashed flat.
    “To be honest…I have a…little problem,” she said.
    I nodded, not agreeing, not implying that I was aware of her problem and that it didn’t seem little to me. Obviously, she had no memory of the night of the “lorvely parny,” or of pitching into me. Nor had she been in any condition to notice, as I had, how unsurprised Laura was to see her mother pass out.
    “I have…bursitis,” she said.
    I had never heard it called that before.
    “And it hurts, so sometimes—even the doctor said a drink could help. But sometimes it doesn’t, it takes more, and I…” She studied her hands. She had long fingers and beautifully manicured nails. “Bad nerves, too. I can’t get steady. It isn’t all my fault. I wanted to be a good mother.”
    I was trying hard to fill in the gaps between her visit, Laura’s confession, bursitis and her effectiveness as a parent.
    “Sometimes I wasn’t…”
    I settled back, hands folded across my midriff as if I were Dr. Freud until I remembered that my turf was dangling participles, not exposed ids and mangled egos. Even if I figured out what she was saying, I had no idea what to do with her revelations.
    “I didn’t listen,” Alice Clausen said. “I didn’t—”
    I interrupted. “Nobody can listen all the time. Every mother thinks she could have done more. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
    “I