“Emma, listen. Bobby called me. Mother was in the hospital—now, don’t jump to conclusions. She’s out again now. But from what Bobby’s been telling me, things are very strange. She stays in her room all the time and Anne Marie won’t let anyone see her and Daddy’s going crazy. He’s doing things. Financially.”
Emma stared into her tea. Mother sick. Mother in the hospital. It was like seeing those pictures of baby seals dead on the ice. It made Emma feel sick and numb and very, very frightened.
“Myra?” she said. “What was Mother in the hospital with?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Don’t you think you ought to find out? That’s the important thing. Daddy can’t really do anything, financially or otherwise. He’s in that wheelchair. And he took care of the money years ago.”
“Bobby’s worried,” Myra said stubbornly.
“Bobby’s always worried,” Emma said. “That’s what he does with his life. What does Anne Marie say?”
Myra paused so long, Emma thought she’d hung up. When her voice came back, it sounded strangled.
“Anne Marie,” she said, “is hysterical. You know Anne Marie.”
Actually, Emma didn’t know Anne Marie. There was fifteen years’ difference between them and an even wider gulf in personality. Emma did whatever came into her head. Anne Marie thought things through and found some reason not to do them.
“Emma,” Myra said. “You know Bobby. He’s not an alarmist. If he says something’s wrong, something’s wrong.”
“Maybe,” Emma said, “but he’s an old lady about money. And there’s nothing to worry about. The money’s all locked up. Daddy did it himself.”
Emma waited for Myra to say it was all her, Emma’s, fault. Instead, Myra said, “Emma, I really think we all ought to go out there.”
Emma paused with her mug of tea halfway to her lips. She had heard that tone in Myra’s voice only once or twice before. Mostly, Myra was harmless, but there were times. … Emma put her mug back on the floor, feeling distinctly uneasy. She thought of her family as a collection of benign kooks. Too much money over too many generations had left them a little addled, but in pleasant, amusing ways. Of course, there was nothing pleasant about Daddy. He was a nasty, vindictive old man. But—
But. When Myra got started—and praise God in Heaven it didn’t happen often—things could get damn near lethal.
“Myra,” Emma said carefully, “I don’t think—”
“Oh,” Myra said, “you never do. But I do. And I think we ought to go up there. For Christmas.”
“Daddy will throw us out,” Emma said.
“No, he won’t. You know how Mother is about Christmas. We could go up Christmas Eve and stay till New Year’s. By then we’d have everything straightened out.”
“Maybe Daddy doesn’t want everything straightened out.”
“Daddy doesn’t know what he wants. If he did, he wouldn’t have done all that about the money. Now, Emma, I don’t want any arguments. Just be on the five-seventeen when it gets to Bryn Mawr December twenty-third. I’ll pick you up at the station.”
“Myra—”
“Bring woolies. It gets cold up there this time of year.”
Emma stared into the phone and sighed. It was infuriating. No matter what she did, they always got to her. Family, home, position, security, money—she hated to admit it, but the thought of going home for Christmas had improved her mood enormously. Even after all that terrible stuff about Mother.
Even after Myra had made her think about the money.
Emma stretched out on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Large rooms. Fireplaces. Mattresses and box springs. Four-hundred-dollar down comforters. Oh, Lord.
She felt about as independent as a baby kangaroo.
2
When Bennis Hannaford hung up on her sister Myra, she was thinking not about what Myra had said (Myra never made any sense), but about the phone call she’d had only half an hour earlier, the one from the nut. She put her hand to the back of her head and released her black wiry hair from its barrette. Through an accident of genetics, she had all the really good Hannaford features and none of the bad ones. Her bones were fine and fragile. Her eyes were large and widely spaced and almost a deep purple. Her cheekbones were high and her cheeks just a little hollow. She was a beautiful woman, and she knew it.
The nut on the phone had given her a flawless description of her living room as it had existed six months ago, which meant he was one of the people who had attended the fantasy fan convention in Chicago last June. That meant he could be either harmless or not, depending. Depending on where he was. Depending on his psychiatric history. Depending…