“The thing is, Dad, that some of it has to do with you.”
“With me!”
“I never wanted you to move out, Dad. I like to take care of you, and I very much enjoyed having you live with us. But then when Pete and I started dating, and eventually got engaged, you suddenly decided to move into Happy Home, and since you seemed so keen on it, I didn’t want to stand in your way. But I have to tell you that I never agreed with that decision.”
“I only did it to give you and Pete some space,” said Bob. “A young couple…”
Sharon laughed.“We were hardly a young couple, Dad. I’m forty-eight and Pete is fifty-two.”
“You know what I mean. A couple needs their privacy. They can’t have some old fogey trampling all over the place and getting in their way.”
“I liked it when you trampled all over the place,” said Sharon softly. “And so when you left, and suddenly it was just me and Pete, I guess I felt… angry. I blamed him for you leaving. I even told him that he chased you away. And so before long we were fighting, and our happy home wasn’t a happy home anymore. And so then you also moved out,” she told Pete. “And suddenly I was all alone in that big house, and… Well, I haven’t had a good time this past year.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said Bob ruefully. “I just thought—”
“I know, dad. You did what you thought was best, and so now I want to apologize to you, Pete.”
Pete stared at Sharon, a strange glimmer in his eyes. If Bob didn’t know any better, it looked as if he was tearing up.
“I want to apologize for blaming you for something you had absolutely nothing to do with. I drove you away, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
“I’ve missed you, Sharon,” said Pete, his voice suddenly husky. “And I’m also sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. You were in pain, after your mom died, and then your dad left, and I should have understood that, and reacted with compassion instead of anger.”
Sharon dipped her head down, and Bob could tell that she was also tearing up.
Now what was going on here? For the life of him he didn’t have a clue anymore. But before he knew it, suddenly Pete had taken a step toward Sharon, and before long, the two of them were clasping each other in their arms, and kissing, and crying, and laughing.
And as he wiped away a tear himself, he suddenly heard himself say,“If you really wanted to, I could move back in. But only if you think it’s a good idea, you hear.”
Sharon gave him a watery smile.“I really want you to move back in with me, Dad.” She glanced up at Pete, who was holding onto her and didn’t look like he was about to let go any time soon. “Move in with us, if that’s all right with you, Pete.”
“Yes,” said Pete huskily. “I want everything to be just the way it was. We were happy, weren’t we, the three of us?”
“And we’ll be happy again,” said Bob, making a swift decision.
Later, when emotions had stopped running so high, he asked Pete how he had known about Henry’s murder. And when he told him that a Janelle Corr had called him and explained the situation, he smiled. Now talk about a nosy busybody…
38
Ester Teasle was polishing the framed picture of her son with his second wife and kids when there was a knock at the door and that very same son and wife and kids suddenly came walking in!
“Knock knock,” said Kirk, and looked worried when she simply stared at them, too stunned for speech. “We thought we’d drop by,” he explained. “I hope it’s not a bad time?”
“We heard about the murder, Grandma,” said Sasha, Kirk’s youngest. She was fourteen and precocious for her age.
“Yeah, is it true that a murderer has been killing people all over the place?” asked Oscar, who was sixteen and loved playing video games. At least he used to, before Ester had moved into Happy Home.
“Oh, will you look at you,” she said, when she finally had recovered enough from the shock to be able to speak. “How you have grown!”
And they had—both of them.
She glanced at Prunella, who still looked exactly the same: cold and aloof and also very, very beautiful, in a statuesque sort of way. Like a beautiful marble statue, and with just about the same warmth and affection.
“Hello, Ester,” said Prunella, and glanced around with a look of distaste. “This place is a lot smaller than I imagined.”
“It’s nice,” said Sasha. “In fact it’s very nice. Nicer than my room.”
“We heard about the murder,” said Kirk. “Is it true? Did one of the nursing aides in this place actually murder one of the old boys?”
“He did, yeah,” said Ester, who was too happy to see her family to be bothered by Kirk referring to Henry as an ‘old boy.’ “Smothered him with a pillow and then substituted his will for a will he wrote himself, trying to lay his hands on Henry’s money.”
“Ten million?” said Kirk. “And the guy lived next door to you?”