“If you think you’re going to sleep, I’d like to go back to the cottage and see how it’s going.”
“Trust me. I’ll sleep. You are free to go.”
“Right. Well, I won’t be long. With any luck, I’ll come back with more good news.”
“I’ll count on that.”
He smiled a soft smile. “Get some rest. I’ll be back soon.”
After he was gone, Maddie remembered she was not supposed to be alone. But she fell asleep so fast, it didn’t really matter.
* * *
She dreamed about her grandmother. Again.
“You know the rules,” Grandma whispered, “A double-dip cone if you help me shuck corn for dinner.”
This time, though, Maddie had trouble running down the hill toward Mr. Fuller’s ice cream shack; it was hard to negotiate the sandy path with a cast on one leg and crutches under both her arms. To top it off, she wasn’t a child but a full-grown woman.
When she finally opened her eyes, she sensed that hours had passed. Bands of late-summer sunlight slanted through the windows; a light breeze fluttered the sheers.
She listened for movement elsewhere in the cabin but only heard birds trilling outside. Then she got up and limped into the bathroom on her crutches. Next, she checked the living room, then the kitchen, then the other bedroom. And both the front porch and smaller one outside the back door. She was alone; it didn’t look as if anyone had been there while she’d slept. If they had, there were no signs—there wasn’t a towel on the floor or a spoon in the sink. Which ruled out her non-neatnik son.
Groping around, she found the makings for tea; she filled the kettle and set it on the stove. Then she opened the refrigerator door and stared inside: their stop at Cronig’s had produced some inviting offerings, but she’d learned that trying to cook while standing on crutches wasn’t fun. It would be safer if she could find crackers and a can of soup. Not exactly an August meal, but at least she could dump chicken noodle into a pan without making too much of a mess. In spite of being a gourmet chef, maybe Rex kept a few cans of Progresso on hand for emergencies.
She opened one cabinet: glassware and mugs. The next one had plates and bowls. But Maddie struck gold with door number three: canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned soup.Hooray. Elated, she chose chicken and wild rice. And then she realized she needed a can opener. And a microwave container for nuking or a pan for simmering.
Sometimes nothing was easy.
Setting the can on the counter, she opened the next cabinet door; amazingly, there sat what looked like a perfect heat-it-and-eat-from-it bowl. She set it on the counter next to the can.
Then she turned to three vertical drawers under the counter—maybe one was a junk drawer where a can opener might live. But the top one held silverware; the drawer below that, large cooking utensils. Not ready to quit, Maddie took a step back, then, leaning her crutches against the counter, she cautiously bent down, aware she could tip sideways and fall at any second. She could break open the cast. Or worse, whack her head again. And this time, no one was there to rescue her.
Still, she decided to risk it.
The bottom drawer was heavier than the others. She reached up and held on to the edge of the counter, mindful of keeping her balance. Then she grasped the handle and gave it a good jerk. With reluctance, the drawer popped open. At a quick glance, however, she didn’t see a can opener. Instead, there was a bag of white candles, a box of wooden matches, several placemats, and a pile of matching cloth napkins. But no can opener.
So she retreated to the living room, plunked down on a chair, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 27
It sounded like a thousand trains were roaring through her head, their whistles blowing, blowing, blowing as if hundreds of people were standing in the middle of the tracks ahead of it and the engineer was warning them to get out of the way.Now.
Then Maddie’s eyes blinked and blinked until they fully opened.
Had she been in a coma again—or had she just fallen asleep? Maybe she’d dreamed everything that had happened. Was the cottage on fire—or wasn’t it?
The whistles kept blaring. She blinked again. She was sitting in a comfy chair but could not remember where she was. Her eyes darted around the room to the fireplace, the big picture window, the braided rug that must have been at least half a century old. Nothing was familiar.
She squeezed her eyelids shut and covered her ears from the piercing sounds.
ThenRex’s cabinbuzzed into her mind. She wasn’t sure if she was happier she’d remembered, or disappointed that she knew why she was there. The fire had been real. Her grandmother’s cottage might still be burning. And the whistling sounded like it was coming from a teakettle.
She remembered that Grandma Nancy had a whistling teakettle when Maddie was a little girl. Grandma had said the whistle was because old ladies needed to be reminded that they’d started to make tea before they got busy doing something else and forgot about it. Maddie had found that fascinating.
Then she remembered she’d been boiling water for tea.
She would have jumped up if she could have. Instead, she had to wriggle her body sideways to get enough leverage from the armrest to stand up. Then she slogged her way into the kitchen, one wobble at a time, all the while thinking:This is why I shouldn’t be left alone. But Rex hadn’t known that because she hadn’t told him.
