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Clara had another small stroke in September, that left her with one drooping eyelid and halting speech, now as ragged as soft. Jea
It was stiflingly hot. Jea
She came out two hours later. Not drunk at all-no one could say she was drunk. A lady, worried to death about her old great-aunt, needing a cool place to spend a few hours before the hospital would let her back in… that's all. She knew her limits well, and she knew exactly what she wanted. She had the name and number she had expected to find, and would not need to visit the Blue Suite again.
That night, alone in the house (Clara would be in the hospital another two days, the doctor had said), she lounged in the parlor as she never did when Clara was there. She had remembered to call Pearl, had said she didn't need any help with anything, and now she relaxed, safe, wearing the short lacy nightshirt she'd bought in the county seat, enjoying the first cold beer she'd ever had in this house. She smirked up at the shelves of figurines. Clara's monthly allowance wouldn't exactly cover what she wanted, but she knew there were places to sell some of this trash, and if Clara were bedfast she'd never know.
Clara came home more fragile than before. She never left the bedroom now, and rarely managed to sit up in the armchair; Jea
"It's all right," she told Pearl. "Do you want me to wake her, so you can talk?"
"Not if she's sleeping," said Pearl. "Just tell her."
"She sleeps a lot more now," said Jea
Clara was not asleep, but her voice no longer had the resonance to carry from room to room… and certainly not enough to be overheard on the phone. "Who was it, dear?" she asked when Jea
"Nothing," said Jea
Clara moved her head a little on the pillow. "I hope not… but she'll call. Tell me if she calls, dear, won't you?"
"Of course."
Two days later, it was possible to tell Pearl that Clara had forgotten being told-of course she had told her about the calls, but since this latest stroke, and with the new medications… Jea
She left them alone, and went to fix them tea; she could just hear Pearl 's deep voice, and a wisp of plaintive trembling treble that must be Clara. When she came in with the tray, Clara's hands were shaking so that she could not hold the cup.
"Are you sure you told me, dear?" she asked Jea
"I'm sure, Aunt Clara. I'm sorry-maybe you were still sleepy, or maybe the medicine…" She held the cup to Clara's lips, waited for her to slurp a little-no longer so ladylike in her sips-and set it down.
Pearl, leaning back in her chair, suddenly sniffed. Jea
"Do you have a cat again, Clara?" she asked. Jea
"No, but there's a stray, and he… uh… he… you know."
"He sprays the house? It must be, to smell that strong on a chilly day. I thought perhaps indoors-"
"Did I ever tell you about the time Snowball clawed the minister's wife?" asked Clara brightly. Jea
After that it was as easy as she'd hoped. November continued cold and damp; Clara's friends came rarely, and readily believed Jea
When they came, Clara would be exquisitely clean and neat, arrayed in her best bedjacket; Jea
It was true that Clara's monthly allowance from the trust would not buy Jea
Gradually, week by week, she pilfered more: an old microscope that had belonged to Clara's dead husband, a set of ruby glass that they never used, a pair of silver candlesticks she found in the bottom cupboard in the dining room. Clara had jewellery that had been her mother's and her older sisters', jumbled together in a collection of old jewellery boxes, white and red and green padded leather, hidden in bureau drawers all over the house, under linens and stationery and faded nightgowns from Clara's youth and brief marriage. With one eye on the bed, where Clara lay dozing, Jea