In the meantime, I couldn’t ignore it. I just had to work through it as long as I could and then rest.
Ricky kept up his monologue through dinner until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I’ll be in the bedroom reading,” I announced as I stood up.
“Aren’t you going to have any of the brownies? They’re really good. And besides, they belong to you. If you aren’t here, can we have some?”
I wanted to yell, “Shut the fuck up and let me alone!” But Ricky wouldn’t understand. He’d be hurt by my shouting at him. This was my problem, not his.
“Yeah, help yourselves to the brownies,” I said and turned to go into the bedroom, leaving my half-eaten dinner on the table behind me.
Joyce Tanner, former wife of Mr. Olsen, mother of the little boys, and nurse, had shown up at the clinic in tears.
“Fen, are you okay? Robert didn’t hurt you too badly, did he?” she’d asked as she entered the room. Then she’d burst into more tears.
She’d babbled on about how sorry she was, although I kept trying to tell her that I didn’t blame her or her kids at all. She wasn’t listening, so I let her carry on talking about her wreck of a marriage. In the end, she gave me a houseplant, and if I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have laughed.
After I was discharged, she came by Blue Cottage and gave me some cookies, which John thanked her for and Ricky scarfed up like they were peanuts. Then a few days ago, she’d dropped a shoebox full of brownies off at the nursery, and Ricky’d bugged me all day to open the box and share.
Now he got his wish. I hoped the brownies didn’t go as fast as the cookies had. I knew I was developing a very bad attitude. I blamed my mother.
* * * *
Two days later, Ricky kept stopping me at work to ask if I’d seen Joyce.
“Doesn’t she know we’re out of brownies? What are we going to do if she doesn’t bring us something else to eat?”
As usual, he nattered on and on. I was beginning to understand how someone got to the point of wanting to hit another person in the nose. One bad joke was enough for Robert Olsen. A lot of pestering might be my limit.
Joyce never showed up. So by dinner time, Ricky was totally upset and blaming me.
“Me?” I yelped. “How can you blame me?”
He glared my way and muttered, “You probably weren’t nice enough when you thanked her.”
John laughed, which I thought was cruel of him.
“It’s probably because she thought the brownies would last at least a week,” I told Ricky.
He sighed. “She thought three guys wouldn’t eat them in a couple of hours? What’s she gonna do when her boys get bigger? Make them split a brownie?”
I exchanged a look with John, and we both burst out laughing this time.
“You laugh. But those kids are going to be hurting if she doesn’t figure out guys.”
We nodded in agreement and snickered.
As dinner was coming to an end, someone knocked on the front door. Ricky jumped up.
“She’s here! What do you think she brought us?”
“You mean brought me, right?”
He looked blankly at me.
John clapped me on the shoulder on his way to the front door. “You’re never going to convince him the goodies were ever all yours.”
I sighed. He was right. What was mine was now Ricky’s.
I gathered the plates and had made it into the kitchen by the time he opened the door.
Ricky shrieked and ran into the kitchen with me. I heard Leo shout, “Shut up and get out here!”
“No! You’ve got a gun!” Ricky shouted back.
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. If my encounter with Robert Olsen taught me nothing else, it was that practical precautions beat foolhardiness every time.
Leaving Ricky and John at Leo’s mercy for the moment, I scurried quietly up the back stairs.
I called 911 and whispered as loudly as I could, “Blue Cottage. Leonard Waterson is here. With a gun,” and hung up. Help was coming.
Now all I had to do was stall Leo long enough for the sheriff or his deputies to get across the street. I had to be armed.
I snuck into my living room, avoiding all the creaking and groaning boards, grabbed an andiron from beside the fireplace, and then went to my back door. I figured I had the best chance of surprising Leo and making him drop his gun if I attacked him from John’s front door, which would be behind Leo.
The air was freezing outside, too cold to be without a sweater or jacket for very long. I figured since I hadn’t heard it slam that the front door was still open. Leo would probably be trying to herd John and Ricky outside.
I got snow in my shoe and had to stifle a curse. Damn.
As I crept past the first-floor windows, I could see John with his hands up and Ricky yelling at Leo, his hands windmilling and gesturing his distress.
At the corner of the house, I ran into the sheriff and two deputies.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing out here?” the sheriff whispered. Before I could answer, he asked, “Did you leave the back door open?”
I nodded and pointed up to the second floor.
“The upstairs door’s unlocked. There’s a stairway between floors in my kitchen.”
The sheriff gestured for one of the deputies to head back the way I’d come. After being beaten by Mr. Olsen, I wasn’t very excited about getting into the fray
