Chapter 38
Keys rattle in the lock, jolting me from sleep.
For a moment, I forget where I am. But as the front door creaks open, instinct takes over and I shoot to my feet, running out of the room with impressive speed for an elderly woman.
Nugget, who’d been asleep in the hallway, also leaps up and starts barking maniacally.
By the time I get there, Roxanne is peering around the door, which is blocked by the chair.
“What the—?”
The dog is still barking. I can’t think straight. “Nugget, would you knock that off?”
By some miracle, she does. I move the chair from the door and Roxanne comes inside.
Roxanne looks bewildered. “Elsie? What are you doing here?”
“Mama?”
From where we stand we have a clear view to Persephone’s room, so when we look we see her sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes. Her voice is thick with sleep.
“Hi, baby.” Roxanne walks into Persephone’s room, and sits at her bedside, smoothing a hand over her daughter’s hair. “Sorry I woke you. I wasn’t expecting to see Elsie, and it gave me a fright.”
Persephone lies back down. “A man came here. Elsie protected me. I asked her to stay with me until you got home.”
The air shifts. It’s hard to see Roxanne’s expression in the dark, but I can tell from the way her spine straightens that this isn’t just a misunderstanding. She meets my eye, then quickly looks away.
“Well,” she says, her voice carefully level, “I’m home now. So why don’t you go back to sleep?”
She pulls Persephone’s quilt up over her shoulders. I wait for Roxanne to get up but she stays there, watching her daughter sleep. It continues long enough that I leave the room, with Nugget at my heel, and wait for her in the kitchen.
Roxanne’s kitchen is laid out identically to mine—cabinets and stove against the wall, a long low island bench in front, no window—though this one has been renovated more recently, the ’80s or ’90s judging by the peach laminate cabinetry.
Her fridge—which is covered in notices from Persephone’s school and a photograph of the child that looks to be a couple of years old—is in need of a new seal.
It sags open enough that the interior light shines through the crack.
I’m contemplating putting the kettle on when Roxanne arrives in the kitchen.
“If you’ll allow me to explain,” I start, and then Roxanne puts her arms around me. I stop.
“Thank you. If something had happened to her … I don’t know if I could have survived it.”
“All right.” I pat her back awkwardly. I’m still in my nightie and bare feet. “I’ve had just about enough hugs for one day.”
She lets me go. Her eyes are watery and she looks bone-tired. “You must think I’m a monster, leaving her at home alone at night.”
I pull out a stool from the island bench and sit. “I don’t think you’re a monster,” I say. “I’d possibly say that you had poor judgment—”
“And you’d be right to say that. I showed incredibly poor judgment, leaving Persephone home alone. I have no excuse, other than that I was desperate.”
“Where were you, Roxanne?”
She sits on the stool beside me. “At work.”
“At work?”
“I clean office buildings. My shift starts late at night when everyone’s gone home.
The money is really good—one or two nights a week keeps the wolves from the door.
But if I pay a babysitter overnight rates, I end up with nothing.
” She doesn’t look at me. Her expression is blank.
“I told myself if I put her to bed before I left and then got home before she woke up, it would be fine. It’s a safe little laneway.
” She peters off. “Anyway. It was stupid.”
Yes, I think. It was very stupid. But who hasn’t done something stupid in their life?
“Well,” I say. “What’s done is done.”
She nods, her eyes closed. Then she looks over at me. “The man. Tell me about him. What did he look like?”
“Tall, dark hair. I saw him the other day, hanging around. I called him the Italian Stallion. Only in my head, obviously. I heard a loud knock just after eleven, and I looked out the window and saw Persephone open the door.”
Roxanne closes her eyes. “I told her never to answer the door.”
“She was half asleep, I doubt she thought about what she was doing. Besides, he wasn’t going anywhere.”
“What did you do?”
“I came out in my nightie and said I was the babysitter, that I’d just popped home to get my bathrobe. It took a bit of doing, but I finally convinced him that if he didn’t leave, the police would come.”
Roxanne lowers her forehead to the counter.
“You’re tired,” I tell her. “So am I. Why don’t we all get some sleep and we can talk more in the morning, if you’d like to.”
She lifts her head, but her eyes remain closed. “All right. Good idea.”
I slide off my stool. “Just one question before I go.”
She exhales slowly. “Shoot.”
“Would you like me to kill him?”
Roxanne opens her eyes. “Could you make it painful?”
“I’m Mad Mabel,” I say, all mock-offended. Then I smile. “Painful deaths are my specialty.”