“Not intruding at all,” the daughter said. “I love to talk about Mom. We were very close, and she’ll be sadly missed.” At that, the daughter started to sniffle.
Doreen hurriedly said, “Thank you very much for speaking with me then.” And she hung up.
She got up and walked around the house, trying to deal with her own sense of loss because it brought up the reminder that Nan wasn’t as young as she used to be, and her death could happen any time too. Whether natural or unnatural, that was scary to think about. Obviously it was worse to consider somebody had helped these old ladies to their deaths. But to consider that four were struck down by Mother Nature just like that?
Well, it’s not something Doreen wanted to consider. She had visions of Nan being one hundred years old and driving her cronies wacky with her betting. The odds weren’t necessarily in her favor, but she was in good health, so she’d go as long as she could go. As long as Doreen could make sure that nobody would help her nan into the grave, like maybe these other women had been helped. And it was interesting to consider that all these dead women had been friends with Marsha, until now one of them had risen above within the kiwi-growing community.
Doreen couldn’t get her mind wrapped around the kiwis. They were harder to grow than avocados for sure, and certainly bananas were a nonstarter here, and citrus had to be greenhoused and cared for gently. But it was possible to grow lemons and oranges in Kelowna. It’s just that they had to be mothered all the time. Doreen wasn’t sure if she was up for that kind of gardening, but it did spike her interest. She was particularly wondering about fruit trees. Just little ones that she could keep pruned, and anything food-related was a good idea as far as she was concerned, and that had her up and walking outside to her new deck to view her garden.
Every time she came out here, she wanted to dance and sing in joy. She skipped down the few steps onto the sidewalk and laughed. “Look at this, Mugs. Just look at this,” she said. And she raced down to the creek and back to the deck again. Mugs barked and danced around her, matching her step for step. Thaddeus flew partway, landed, picked up, flew a little bit, and then got sidetracked by something in the grass. He started pecking away, while Doreen laughed.
Goliath, on the other hand, stretched out in the sun along the top step on the deck and dropped his head and rolled onto his back, leaving his big furry tummy open for the fresh breeze. She reached down and gave him a bit of a belly scratch. He didn’t even move. “I’m glad to see you guys all approve,” she said.
It was stupendous. She walked to the two spots where the men had left her room for a garden, right where the railings were. It was definitely big enough to put something in. She just didn’t know what. Something bright and cheerful would be nice to help counteract all the wood. As much as she loved wood, it could use a little bit of a change in color and tone.
Finally she stopped her dancing and jumping about, gasping for air, but having enjoyed the racing back and forth, and just stood and marveled at her backyard. She did have room for a few small trees and definitely could put some vegetable gardens in. Mack was right. It would be lovely to have some fresh salad, homegrown by her. She was such a rabbit, so why hadn’t she even considered rabbit food? Because a vegetable planting was so far from her realm of experience, and yet she was a gardener. She thrived on it. So how did she end up with this big blank spot in her world?
He had mentioned something about seeds and how they weren’t expensive and, if she went online, she could probably find a bunch. It might be too late to find any seeds to buy in a local gardening center. Were there any still open? She frowned as she thought about it. It was late June already; still there should be time for sowing at least lettuce and maybe green onions, potentially some of the faster-growing vegetables. She’d have to do some research and figure it out.
As she headed back inside to her kitchen, her mind wandered back to the four dead women. One had been walking in a parking lot alone, and that didn’t seem all that strange. Another one had gone for a walk on her own, and one had been found on the sidewalk alone, and one had been in a park. All four of those weren’t odd in their own right. But one had seemed secretive and maybe was meeting somebody. Doreen wondered who and why.
She quickly dialed the son of the second woman, Kimmy Schwartz, knowing that men were much less prone to talk about things, like what Bella’s daughter had been very focused on.
“And what do you want?” he snapped at her when he learned who she was.
She winced at that. “I was just speaking with the daughter of Bella Beauty,” she explained carefully. “There was talk about doing a newsletter to celebrate the women’s lives.”
His tone mollified somewhat, he said, “That’ll be something my wife will handle. My mother was a sweet old lady, and it was her time. That’s all there was to it.”
“Did she often go walking outside alone like that?”
“No,” he said. “She said she was meeting somebody, an old friend. Somebody she was trying to heal a rift with, and I don’t know if she did or not, but I would hope so because it’s important to her in her soul that she’s cleared as many of her
