Bloodline(36)

I’m the last to arrive. When Catherine walks me to the living room, I discover Barbara, Dorothy, Rue, and Mildred seated on the couch. All four look like versions of the same person: smiling, middle-aged, bouffant hair, lips colored coral or pink tea rose, all wearing glasses.

Is this my future?

“You made it!” Dorothy stands and pecks each of my cheeks, stroking my hair for so long that I have to pull away to greet the other women.

“Thank you for having me,” I say, glancing down at my feet. “I’m glad to be here.” I suddenly feel shy. I’m not sure why. Their faces, with the exception of perennially sour-faced Catherine’s, are welcoming.

“Our pleasure,” Catherine says. She hasn’t sat down. I find myself not wanting to turn my back on her. “And you brought a Bundt cake. That is too kind. Why don’t you drop it in the kitchen, and you can join us back here. We were just discussing our charitable projects. Mildred, will you show Joan to the kitchen?”

I smile weakly at Mildred, who’s clearly at the bottom of the pecking order. Maybe she can be my ally. Once we’re out of earshot of the rest, we can joke about my faux pas at bringing a store-bought dessert. Or, if I’m really lucky, about Catherine’s tone when she referred to it, as if I’d brought frosted dog shit rather than a packaged cake.

When Mildred leads me into the kitchen and opens her mouth, I realize it’ll be neither.

“Catherine told us you visited Dr. Krause today. How is the baby?”

“Fine.” It’s a bark more than a word.

Mildred cowers like I’ve struck her, and I immediately regret my harshness. Mildred the Mouse and her quivering whiskers. I set the cake down. Is it too soon to go home? “I’m sorry. I’m not used to everyone . . . caring so much about me. Do you have children?”

Mildred is hammocking one hand in the other, rocking them as if she’s cradling a tiny child. “Three. Three daughters.”

I try to think of the neighbors I’ve encountered since we moved in. “Do they still live at home?”

“Heavens, no. It’s just Teddy and me in the castle now.” She reaches out a hand to touch me but can’t quite bring herself to. Her expression is soft and moony, and it crosses my mind that I’m not the only one Dr. Krause is prescribing Valium for.

“It is lovely, isn’t it, to have the whole town as your family?” she asks, her hand floating between us.

Because I don’t want to be a risk, don’t want to be trouble, I smile. “It is lovely.”

Her face lights up. I’ve matched her tone perfectly. I let her lead me back to the living room.



The food is surprisingly good, the conversation light. I find myself with more hot-dish recipes than I could prepare in a month and a backlog of stories to tell Deck. Clan Brody nearly mangling his hand trying to fix a snowblower. Scaredy-mouse Mildred traveling to Saint Cloud and getting lost in the mall parking lot. Deck’s own mother trying a new beautician and emerging from the beauty parlor to discover her bouffant was the color of apricots when the sun hit it.

At some point, Saint Dorothy, who’s seated next to me at the table, begins stroking my hair again. I find I don’t mind. The conversation is smooth, no sharp edges, and the murmur of it makes me drowsy, these women cooing and warbling like soft-chested birds, pulling me into their nest, soothing me.

It’s as if they’ve drugged me.

The realization makes me start. “Paulie Aandeg is back in town,” I blurt.

By their exchanged glances, I can tell I’ve committed another faux pas, splashing lurid real life onto their smooth white canvas.

Dorothy stops stroking my hair. “We know, dear.”

Now that I’ve blundered in, I stubbornly want to see this horse over the line. “Do any of you remember when he disappeared?”

“We all do,” Catherine says icily. “It almost destroyed Lilydale.”

She’s staring at Dorothy as she says it. Why?

“Mrs. Lily,” I ask Dorothy, using her formal name because her face is so near mine, and I want to create distance. “Did you know Paulie or his mom?”

She grabs my hand and squeezes it. “We all knew Virginia Aandeg. She was an unfortunate woman.”

“But no mother deserves to lose her child,” Mildred says, glancing around for approval. “We’re so glad he’s back.”

“If it really is him,” Rue says mildly. She’s been quiet most of the night.

“Did Amory tell you something?” Catherine asks.

Rue’s birdie shoulders lift slightly. “It’s just good to be cautious.”

The four of them seem to take Rue’s words at face value, and Catherine changes the subject, returning to the cotton candy conversation from earlier. Church charity events they’re planning, the new Simplicity MuuMuu caftan pattern 7088, a fabric trip to Saint Cloud, how Johann Lily wouldn’t be fond of the too-short dress styles, a titter of laughter.

I want to be back inside the circle. “Johann Lily?” I ask.

They ignore me for a moment, burbling on to a discussion of last Sunday’s church service and the choir’s new song that was a hair too racy.

“Johann Lily?” I repeat. “Is he a relative of yours, Dorothy?”

It’s Mildred who responds, after rolling her glance off the suddenly stone-faced women seated around the table. “Johann and Minna founded the town. They immigrated here from Germany in the mid-1800s. I can never remember the year.”