Chapter Eight
We were hoping you’d surprise us with a visit over the weekend,” Monica’s mother, Linda, said when she called Monica that Monday evening. “You haven’t been home since before Halloween.”
“Mama, that was only nine days ago,” Monica reminded her.
“Yes, but it’s two weekends, and we miss you. Fiona called last night and said she’ll do her best to be home for Thanksgiving. You won’t wait that long to come see us, will you?”
“Well …” She tried to think fast and yet not lie. “This is the busy season. Anabelle and I have been trying to get ready for the big Christmas book sale, and we might have to work some on Saturdays.”
“You will be here for Thanksgiving and spend the whole weekend.” Linda left no wiggle room for argument. “Fiona and you are both coming home on Wednesday night and staying until Sunday. That’s not a request. It’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am. I will make those arrangements,” Monica promised. “You and Daddy will be so tired of us you will kick us out and tell us not to come back until Christmas.”
“I doubt that, but speaking of your father, he’s coming in the back door right now. We’re going to the Dairy Queen for supper. It’s been a hectic day for both of us. Love you and see you soon,” Linda said.
“Love you, and yes, you will,” Monica said, and ended the call and turned toward Fiona, who was curled up in the corner of the sofa.
“I guess I’ve got three weeks to get my story together because we are going home for Thanksgiving weekend, aren’t we?” she said.
“Yep, but at least the morning sickness has stopped, and you have a doctor lined up in El Paso,” Monica answered. “You’ll have a due date to give Mama when she asks.”
“It’s due on March first, but wouldn’t it be something if the baby comes late and is born on the sixth, on Mama’s birthday?” Fiona said. “If I have this baby early or go over the due date, she’s going to be upset.”
“No, she won’t,” Monica argued. “She wants a grandchild so bad, it can be born any old time.”
“She’s going to want me to come home,” Fiona said.
“Get a job here in Alvera and you’ll have an excuse to stay,” Monica suggested.
“That’s a great idea. Now tell me what I can do in a town this small, and who is going to hire a pregnant woman?
” Fiona snapped, then sighed. “I’m so, so sorry.
I didn’t mean to use that tone on you.” Her beautiful aqua-colored eyes filled with tears.
“You’re letting me live with you and are taking good care of me.
You do not deserve to be talked to like that. ”
“You are forgiven,” Monica told her. “So are we going to be truthful with Mama or wait until Christmas?”
“Might as well get it over with at Thanksgiving. My jeans are already getting too tight, even though I’m not due until March.”
The room did a couple of spins when Monica stood up, but she quickly adjusted. “Sister, that is only about four months away. What do we want for supper?”
“Whatever you know how to cook, but please nothing spicy like Italian. The smell of marinara sauce gags me. I should have known I was pregnant by that alone since lasagna and rigatoni have always been two of my favorite foods.”
“Something simple, then. Crumb chicken, mac and cheese, and salad?”
“Yes, and sometime in the next four months, could you teach me to make a few easy things. Baby boy”—she laid a hand on her belly that was just starting to round a little—“might like a mama who can make real food.”
“What makes you think you are having a boy?” Monica asked.
“Because God wouldn’t punish me twice.”
“Twice?” Monica frowned.
“Once by letting me get pregnant and not knowing who the father is. The second by giving me a girl that acts like me,” she replied.
Every evening after work, Spencer went to his office and spent hours going through social media sites, looking through pictures on each Monica Smith profile he could find.
Not even one remotely resembled her. Polly’s words about hiring a private investigator made sense, but what would she do if he did find her?
Would she feel like her privacy had been violated or that he was a stalker?
“You are doing that very thing here,” he told himself.
This whole thing was nothing short of an obsession that he had to get over. If she had wanted the relationship to go on past when they left Florida, she would have given him more details about her life.
A week later, after dreaming about her every night, he finally called a private investigator and scheduled a meeting for the week before Thanksgiving.
The address that the guy gave him turned out to be on the wrong side of the tracks in Jeanerette.
He missed the house because two of the numbers on the porch post were gone, so he had to make a U-turn and go back.
There was a feeling of emptiness even before he started up the cracked sidewalk, and he started to abandon the idea of even ringing the doorbell.
But a lady stepped out onto the porch with a box in her hands.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I hope so. I have an appointment with Danny Walsh this morning,” Spencer said.
“Well, son, I’m sorry to bring you bad news, but Danny died of a heart attack last night,” she said.
“I’m so sorry. Could you recommend another PI in this area?”
“You could try Walt Givens, but he’s real pricey. Charges twice as much as Danny did.” Her voice cracked.
“Thank you, and again, I’m sorry. Could I help you with that box?” he asked.
She held the box closer to her chest, as if she was afraid Spencer might harm her. “It’s light, and I’m just taking it to my car, but thank you.”
“Okay, then. Have a nice day,” Spencer said, and went back to his truck.
Monica believed in signs and omens, and there was his written in big bold letters. If finding her was in the stars, Mr. Danny Walsh would not be dead. He removed a notepad from the glove compartment and wrote down Walt Givens—it didn’t hurt to be prepared.
He drove from the house to the first stop sign, and a light flashed on his dash, indicating that he had a tire with very low pressure. He pulled over to the side, got out, and found a nail in the tire. A young lady with dark hair stopped right behind him and rolled down her window.
“Looks like you’re getting a flat. My dad has a mechanic shop about two blocks up the road. You could probably make it that far.” She rolled up the window and drove away.
Spencer got back in his truck and slapped the steering wheel a couple of times.
The signs told him to go home and forget Monica, but his heart told him something different.
He started the engine and drove past two more stop signs before he reached Everett’s Tire and Lube.
He parked in front of open double garage doors and got out of his truck.
An older man wearing bibbed overalls and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows came out of the garage and waved. “Hello, you must be the feller that my daughter told me might come by. Looks like you got something stuck in that rear tire. Want me to take a look at it?”
“Yes, sir,” Spencer said.
“I’m Everett, and I own this place. Come on in and have a cold soda pop while I fix you up. What brings you out to this part of town anyway?”
“I had an appointment with Danny Walsh to do some PI work for me,” Spencer answered.
Everett shook his head slowly. “You are one lucky feller.”
“How do you figure that?” Spencer asked as he took a cold orange soda from a refrigerator that was so old he was sure the Smithsonian would have been interested in taking it off Everett’s hands.
“I grew up with Danny right here in this neighborhood,” Everett answered, and rolled a jack out to the truck.
“He was a shyster. He would have took your money and done nothing for you. I’m just telling you the truth.
I’m not speakin’ ill of the dead.” He looked up at the sky.
“Rest in peace, and may you be three days in the grave before the devil knows you are dead.”
Spencer chuckled. “I never heard that before.”
“Me and Danny are—was—good Irishmen. At least I was good,” he said with a smile as he removed the tire and took it inside the shop. “Don’t know where you been, but this ten-penny nail has brought you here. What was you going to have Danny lookin’ for?”
“A woman I met in Florida,” Spencer answered honestly.
“Women sure can twist a man up, but call it a bit of fate that you don’t have to deal with Danny.
And son, I’ve learned that you got to walk through fire to get a woman worth havin’.
Me and my wife been married more’n forty years now, and believe me, she was worth every trial that I had to endure to get her. ”
“Yes, sir,” Spencer agreed with a nod. Despite the setbacks, he was determined to keep looking for Monica.
Monica looked at the calendar on her desk that Friday.
The local book club had met the night before in the library meeting room, but the whole week of Thanksgiving, nothing was penciled in.
She had hoped that when the weather turned cold that maybe all the memories of the Florida vacation would slowly fade into the background.
It did not happen. If anything, every little detail had gotten even more vivid.
“Hey.” Her sister poked her head in the door to Monica’s office. “Things are sure quiet in here today.”
“Yes, thank goodness. We’ve been so busy for the past couple of weeks that I didn’t know if I was coming or going. Anabelle had to take today off for a doctor’s appointment, so I’m glad for a slow time. Come on in.”
“I’m bored out of my mind,” Fiona said. “What do you think about me volunteering here at the library two or three days a week? I could sort books for the sale and maybe be here to help with it.”
“You’d do that?” Monica asked.
She sat down in one of the wingback chairs on the other side of her desk. “I need something to do. I’m getting so nervous about next week that I’ve started pacing the floor at home. Listen to me, calling your house home.”