Free The Money Bird (An Animals in Focus Mystery) by Sheila Webster Boneham Page B

something happened. So I came back now, well, you know, a little while ago, to have another look around the island. I’m leaving here now, heading over to my mother’s house, but I could swing by your place or, you know, somewhere we could meet in, say, half an hour? I’ll try you again when I get to Coliseum.” Meaning Coliseum Boulevard, one of Fort Wayne’s main drags. “I probably should have said something … Janet, there’s a bird …,” and then there was nothing but empty echo, as if whatever was at the end of the connection had been hollowed out, and finally a voice telling me how to save, hear again, or delete the message. I sat down on a bench in the hall and dialed Anderson’s number, but it went straight to voice mail. Odd. Maybe his battery ran out, or he hit a dead zone around the lake. It’s rolling country, and I’ve had calls dropped out there. I left a message and turned my phone off.
    I found my mother in the garden, as usual. “Hi Mom.” I hoped she couldn’t hear the quiver in my voice if she was having a good day. If she wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter. My whole body relaxed when she turned toward me and smiled.
    “Janet! How are you, dear?” She gave me the first hug I’d had from her in weeks. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She pulled off her work gloves and motioned me toward a cluster of chairs.
    “You look great, Mom.” In fact, she looked happy, and I dared to hope that she wouldn’t ask me to take her home.
    “Must run in the family.” She winked at me. “You look lovely, dear. That rosy top becomes you.”
    A similarly rosy sense of well-being enveloped me as I looked into my mother’s eyes and, for the first time in too long, saw the woman I loved looking back at me. She reached across the table and took my hand.
    “We need to talk about a few things.” Uh oh. Here it comes. I looked at her bony hand folded over mine. She wants to go home. “I know what’s going on.”
    My heart gave a little jump. Mom was prone to mildly paranoid notions these days. “You do?”
    She laughed and squeezed my hand. “I do. Janet, I know I’m losing my marbles. That’s why I want to talk to you now. I’m having a good day, at least so far. So I want you to know a few things.” One more hand squeeze and then she let go and pulled a folded set of papers out of her smock’s huge pocket. She flattened the creased papers against the top of the table, put her reading glasses on, studied the top sheet briefly, and pushed it toward me.
    “Read that.”
    It was a series of directives of various kinds. What to do about the house. What to do with her property. With her money.
    With her.
    “As you see, I’ve signed it, had it witnessed and notarized. My doctor witnessed it.”
    “Mom …”
    “No, listen. We have to do this. When your dad died, he left a lot of loose ends, and I won’t do that to you and Bill.”
    “Has Bill seen this?” My brother, Bill, was having even more difficulty dealing with Mom’s decline than I was.
    “No, not yet.” She set her glasses on the table. “Bill isn’t as tough as you. Never was.”
    “I’m not that tough, Mom.”
    “Yes, you are. And that,” she waved toward the tear that was wriggling its way down my cheek, “doesn’t mean you aren’t. I know, because you’re a lot like me.” She smiled again. “That’s why we fought so much when you were younger.”
    Sudden anger flared in my brain, snuffed immediately by guilt and a sense of futility. Was my mother opening a conversation about reconciling our long-standing conflicts? Why now, when I couldn’t be sure she’d still be with me mentally in ten minutes? Why not ten years ago when we could have enjoyed one another?
    “Janet, I’ve signed a quit claim. It’s in there.” She waved at the papers in my hands. “The house is yours. Jack Schweyer knows about it.” Jack had been my parents’ attorney since I was in diapers, which put him at least in his seventies. According