The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(112)

“Have you heard from Jack?” I asked as I entered the kitchen.

My mother was ladling soup from a large pot on the stove into two shallow bowls. “No. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t called me at all today, which is a first.”

“Can you try to call from your phone? I can’t seem to get through to him on mine.”

She raised her eyebrow at my sudden change of heart, but didn’t say anything as she picked her phone off the counter and dialed. I heard a piercing ping from across the room and watched as she held the phone away from her ear. “I must have dialed it incorrectly.” She tried again, and received the same result.

We sat at the table with the soup in front of us, neither one of us reaching for a spoon. “There’s something wrong,” I said.

She nodded. “I can feel it, too. Nothing we can do until we know more, so we might as well eat to keep up our strength. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

As we slowly ate, I told her about my talk with Rebecca. “She said that Hasell wanted you to know that Button did the right thing, and that you should forgive her. Do you know what that means?”

A crease formed between Ginette’s delicate eyebrows. “No. When I went back to New York, Button and I left on good terms. There was no blame between us, no recrimination or acrimony. Only friendship. I remember telling her how thankful I was that she had been there during that dark time when I’d lost the baby, and that she’d sat by my side until I was well. There is nothing she did that I needed to forgive.”

I nodded, my appetite gone. My gaze fell on my phone, and I picked it up. I was in the middle of dialing Jack again when the front doorbell rang, making us both jump. We each scooped up a baby, then went together to answer the door, surprised to find Nola with her school bag, an overnight bag, and all three dogs. She turned around to wave at a car at the curb and I recognized Mrs. Houlihan, who waved back at us.

We ushered Nola and her entourage inside, waiting for her to shed her raincoat before we could hug her. “Daddy isn’t back yet and we couldn’t get hold of him. Mrs. Houlihan didn’t want to leave me by myself on a night like tonight, so she drove me over. We tried to call first, but your cells kept going straight to voice mail.”

We returned to the kitchen and my mother put a bowl of soup in front of Nola. I settled the babies in the playpen my mother had set up by the table to keep them from chewing on the puppies and vice versa. She picked up her spoon but seemed distracted, glancing over at her backpack as if to make sure it was still there.

“What is it, Nola?” my mother finally asked. “Is it your father?”

“Yeah, but there’s something else, too.” Minestrone forgotten, she scraped back her chair and retrieved her backpack. After rummaging through the outside compartment, she pulled out an envelope with a folded piece of notepaper inside. “I’ve been playing with that photo that appeared on my phone.”

“The one of the snow globes?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. I finished my homework early and I was trying to distract myself from worrying about Dad. So I enlarged the photo and printed it out, then got a notebook and started playing with the letters.”

Rebecca’s words came back to me in a rush. “You should listen to Sarah.” “Did you use the order Sarah wanted them in?”

“Of course. I mean, we’d have to be pretty clueless not to know she’s got the gift or whatever you want to call it.” Ginette and I exchanged smiles. “Anyway, you know those word puzzles where you take a letter from each word and form a new word? Well, I did it with each letter of all seven city names in the order they were lined up, using the first letters of each and then the second and so on, and there was only one that made any sense at all.” She opened the notepaper and flipped it around to show us. “The first letters made two words when strung together. All of the other ones were pretty much gibberish.”

I stared at the page in front of me, with the various lines of letters written in Nola’s clear, precise hand, then focused on the first line comprising the first letters. MOMSICK.

“Mom sick,” Ginette said quietly, repeating the two words that echoed in my own head.

“Weird, huh?” Nola said. “Considering it was Hasell who was sick, and we were pretty sure this was sent by Hasell.”

“Unless Anna was ill?” I turned toward my mother.

“No. And I know that for a fact. Her good health was a point of pride for her. She was always saying it was a blessing she was so healthy so she could take care of Hasell.”

I put a spoonful of minestrone in my mouth, not tasting it as thoughts twirled around my brain, stray thoughts bouncing around but none settling long enough to make sense. “Of course, there’re more kinds of illnesses and they’re not all physical.”

The house phone rang, and we all turned to look at the desk phone on the counter. “Nobody calls that number anymore.”

Ginette stood and seemed to walk with trepidation as she went to answer it.

“Hello?” She glanced at me. “Yes, Jack. She’s here. So is Nola. We’ve been trying to reach . . .” She stopped, listening, while both Nola and I half rose in our chairs. “We can be there in ten minutes. Are you sure . . . ?”

We watched as her hand tightened on the receiver before slowly lowering it into the cradle. She looked up at us, her eyes dark saucers. “We were disconnected.”