“Grace is right there!” said Odelia, pointing to the little girl, who was playing on the porch.
“Oh,” said Gran, and retreated into her shell once more.
“Are you all right, Vesta?” asked Chase with concern. “You don’t look so hot.”
Gran suddenly emerged from her lethargy.“Don’t look so hot? You’ve got some nerve, sonny boy, talking to an old lady like that.”
“No, it’s just that I thought… that I figured… that I wondered…”
“What Chase is trying to say,” said Uncle Alec, “is if you’ve finally lost your last marble.”
Gran’s frowned. “Now what a thing to say to your beloved mother.”
“But it’s true! You haven’t been yourself, Ma. So what’s wrong, huh?”
“Nothing is wrong,” said Gran. “Just that I’ve been on a mission, that’s all.”
“What mission? What are you talking about?”
“A mission to try and make you see the light!”
“What light? Stop talking in riddles, will you!”
“Just look at that poor little girl, being dumped at that stupid daycare. You should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you! Children should be raised by their families, not by some strangers, surrounded by the whiny brats of other people.”
“Those whiny brats are all friends of Grace now, Gran,” said Odelia.
“That’s right,” said Chase. “She loves going to the daycare center.”
“No, she doesn’t. She has no other choice, cause you dump her there like an animal left at the pound. You even forget she exists, which is why I’ve been trying to scare you into remembering that you even have a daughter!”
“That’s not fair, Ma,” said Marge. “Odelia and Chase have been busy.”
“They’re always busy! And forgetting they’ve got a duty to their daughter!”
“A lot of working parents have kids, Ma. And they’re doing just fine.”
“Well, I wanted you both to stop and think for a minute. Odelia could give up that job of hers right now if she wanted to. Newspapers are a thing of the past anyway. People get their news from social media these days, not from a silly paper. And as far as Chase is concerned, Alec can find himselfanother detective. It’s not safe for a dad to hobnob with criminals. Too dangerous! And the same goes for Odelia. So Odelia, quit your job, and Chase: get a desk job and work from home.”
“Chase is not a desk jockey, Ma,” Uncle Alec grunted irritably.
“Well, he should be. Much safer that way, and at least Grace will know who her dad is. Imagine her waking up one day when she’s eighteen and wondering if her dad is the guy running the daycare center.”
“I doubt she’ll be at the daycare center when she’s eighteen,” said Odelia.
“You know what I mean. A child needs her parents. It’s important.”
“I know it’s important, Gran,” said Odelia. “And we’re trying the best we can. But Grace also needs a roof over her head, and food on the table, and if I quit my job, and Chase takes a job he can do from home, how are we going to pay the bills? We’re simply trying to balance work and family. It’s not easy, but we’re committed to doing the best we can. With your help, of course, and Mom and Dad.”
“Money is not an object,” said Gran airily. “It will come from somewhere.”
“Unless Odelia wins the lottery, I doubt that very much,” said Marge.
“Can I say something?” said Scarlett. “I’ve been watching Vesta this past week. She told me what she was planning, and I told her it was probably a bad idea, like a lot of her ideas. But Vesta being Vesta, she went ahead and did it anyway.”
“Of course,” said Gran.
“Look, I think you all love Grace very much. And you all want what’s best for her. Each of you in your own way. And naturally there will be differences of opinion. But at the end of the day, I think it’s important for you to understand, Vesta, that Chase and Odelia are great parents, trying hard to do the right thing.”
“I’m not disputing that,” said Gran with a shrug.
“So maybe work out some kind of schedule. Some days Vesta can take care of Grace, and some days I can. And some days she can go to daycare. It takes a village to raise a child, and I think that if you all sit down and talk about this, you’ll see that it’s not that hard to work something out.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” said Charlene.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” said Gran. “Which is all I ever wanted.”
And as the discussion turned lively, Uncle Alec took advantage of the m?l?e to sneak a piece of chicken onto his plate and then into his mouth.
“Why is it so hard to raise a child, Max?” asked Dooley. “I mean, cats don’t make such a big fuss, do they? They don’t have daycare centers and concerned grandparents and aunts and uncles worrying over their every step.”
“Cats are born pretty much fully formed, Dooley,” I said. “With humans it takes years before they’re ready to go out into the world. And even then it’s touch and go sometimes.” I shrugged. “Let’s face it. Cats are the superior species.” Okay, perhaps I was being a little harsh on our humans. But then I was disappointed that neither Odelia or Chase had credited me with providing the breakthrough that had solved their big murder inquiry. But then wasn’t that often the case?