catch cold.”
“And die?” Gertrude’s small eyes darted in the direction of Joe’s back. “Wouldn’t that suit Dumbo
here?”
“Mother,” Judith said with a frown, accidentally ramming the wheelchair into the stove. “Oops! ’Course not.
You know better.” She tried to ignore the puzzled expression on her husband’s face. “Hasn’t Joe taken good
care of you while I’ve been laid out? I mean, laid up.”
“It’s part of his plan,” Gertrude said, scowling at
Joe, who was still turned away from his mother-in-law.
“He’s waiting until you go into the hospital. Then,
when I’m supposed to be lulled into . . . something-orother, he’ll strike!” Gertrude slammed the walker
again. “He knows the ropes, he used to be a cop.
They’ll never catch him, and he’ll make off with all my
candy.”
“Mother . . .” Judith wished she didn’t feel so muddled. She wished she could walk. She wished her
mother wouldn’t insist on wearing a coat that was at
least twenty years old. She wished Gertrude would
shut up. She wished she didn’t have two mothers,
standing side by side.
Joe had finally risen from the chair. “I don’t eat
8
Mary Daheim
candy,” he said in his most casual manner. “You got
any jewels stashed out there in the toolshed, Mrs. G.?”
“Ha!” Gertrude exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you like to
know?” It was one of those rare occasions when
Gertrude addressed Joe directly. As a rule, she spoke of
him in the third person.
Clumsily, Judith opened the oven. “Here, your dinner’s ready. Joe can help dish it up for you, Mother.”
“I’m watching his every move,” Gertrude said, narrowing her eyes. “He might slip something into my
food. I should have Sweetums eat it first, but that
ornery cat’s too danged finicky.”
Joe got the salad out of the refrigerator and removed
the beef-noodle bake from the oven. He filled
Gertrude’s plate with a flourish, added a roll, and
started for the back door. “At your service,” he called
over his shoulder. “Let me help you out.”
“Out?” Gertrude snapped. “Out where? Out of this
world?”
She was still hurling invective as the two of them
went outside. It was a conflict of long standing, a personal Thirty Years War between Joe Flynn and
Gertrude Grover. When Joe had first courted Judith,
Gertrude had announced that she didn’t like him. He
was a cop. They made rotten husbands. He was Irish.
They always drank too much. He had no respect for his
elders. He wouldn’t kowtow to Gertrude.
Judith and Joe had gotten engaged anyway. And
then disaster struck. Joe had gotten drunk, not because he was Irish but because he was a cop, and had
come upon two teenagers who had overdosed on
